St John the Baptist in the Wilderness 1533 - 1578

Editor: Here we have Cornelis Cort's "St John the Baptist in the Wilderness," an engraving, dating somewhere between 1533 and 1578. The intricacy of the linework, especially in the rendering of the foliage, is pretty astounding. What's your perspective on this piece? Curator: I see an engagement with materiality that often gets overlooked. Consider the labor involved in creating this engraving. Each line is a physical act, a mark of human effort, chiseling away at a copper plate. This process mirrors, in a way, St. John's own laborious existence in the wilderness. How might we consider the economic conditions that enabled the production and consumption of prints like these? Editor: That's a really interesting way to put it. I was mostly just thinking about the image itself. But you’re saying the material production is integral? Curator: Exactly. And it challenges the usual high/low art division. We often think of painting as superior, but engraving allowed wider distribution of images. Who had access to these prints? Where were they displayed? Whose labor do we not see represented within the image? Editor: So you're saying the *reproducibility* of the work changes our understanding of its value, or lack thereof? Because more people could access it, it somehow shifts it from being a purely aesthetic exercise? Curator: Precisely! The material existence *is* the message in many ways. Editor: That really gives me something new to think about regarding printmaking and its impact on society at the time. Thanks for shedding some light on the materials and labor involved in creating this piece. Curator: My pleasure! And it shows us, again, how essential it is to not divorce the art object from its physical existence and economic context.