Berglandschap met naaldbomen en beek 1852 - 1855

Curator: Immediately I notice how evocative the landscape is. There's something very humbling and melancholic in how it is represented. Editor: Let’s delve in. This is "Mountain Landscape with Conifers and Stream" by Alexandre Calame, dating from around 1852 to 1855. It's an engraving, so the tones are very considered and carefully built. Curator: Engraving, yes, it feels etched not just onto the paper but into memory somehow. All those details…makes me want to inhale mountain air and reflect on my own insignificance. Am I being too dramatic? Editor: Not at all! Calame was definitely part of the Romantic movement, so that grand, awe-inspiring natural world was what he was after. There are multiple levels in this picture: We look up toward a majestic and formidable natural formation with craggy mountain cliffs framing the background that loom large in front of these somewhat puny, slender trees below. Do these evoke cultural memories of landscape prints from the period at all? Curator: Absolutely, It’s funny how these images lodge themselves into your visual memory, isn't it? It is hard to separate what I am seeing here, from other images. It makes one wonder about that stream running through, this path, or even possible pilgrimage. In some ways the darkness of this black and white work accentuates this pilgrimage in ways that perhaps color might diminish. It somehow focuses it down, laser-like almost. Editor: An interesting read, the etching gives a symbolic weight. Landscape was becoming its own important genre. Do you notice any further iconographic significance, based on cultural norms about the visual symbol of landscape that the engraving reflects? Curator: I hadn't thought of it, but the pines themselves often symbolize steadfastness. Their reaching toward the sky is always pointing upward as they provide their solemn connection between earthly and heavenly spaces. But do you feel like the lack of human presence amplifies a sense of isolation? Editor: That's where it departs from the solely religious, I think. Absence highlights the sublime loneliness and individuality. But it offers space, right? The kind we maybe desperately need. Curator: So well said. I think that hits at something pretty profound actually! Editor: Thanks! Makes you want to run away from it all and find your own mountain stream, right?