Seven putti carrying the cross 1646

Curator: Well, this image has a distinctive, sort of tumbling feeling about it! Editor: Yes, I find it quite poignant, almost comically so. It’s "Seven putti carrying the cross" by Wenceslaus Hollar, created in 1646. It’s an etching, engraving and print on paper now residing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The production of prints was essential for distributing ideas during the Baroque period, acting as a proto-mass medium in that sense. Curator: Right, and there's this strange combination of heaviness and lightness, with these little putti struggling with the cross amidst puffy clouds. It’s beautiful. It does make me think about art production during this time: How often did assistants work on pieces, and how many impressions of the print existed? It makes authorship complex. Editor: A great question. The repetitive aspect certainly cheapens the artistic value in today’s landscape. This print seems so ephemeral too – the tiny bodies, the wispy clouds created from etching and engraving, the cross itself… They are working, literally working!… to bring something grave to heaven! Is that the effect? I am not sure. Curator: But who are these winged kids carrying it anyway? Hollar had to purchase tools and paper to create the design. It really becomes a commentary on the means of production! It forces us to see that, at that point, art has a real commodity value that reflects power in seventeenth century society. Editor: Oh, absolutely. And perhaps that’s part of the piece’s quiet irony? Even with the labor involved in the work of the artist and dissemination to make the image as a print, it still feels as delicate as a child’s daydream. Curator: It really illustrates the tension between art’s perceived ethereal value, its symbolism of the divine even, and the material reality of its production and distribution. I’ll definitely keep that perspective with me. Editor: Yes. It really reminds me that even depictions of heavenly work depend on earthly work!