Dolabella's arch 1861

Curator: This is Ludwig Metz's "Dolabella's Arch," an etching created in 1861 and housed right here in the Städel Museum. Editor: What a melancholic whisper. All those faded tones make me think of old photographs and half-remembered dreams. It has a definite aura of lost grandeur. Curator: Indeed. Metz, working in that romantic-academic style, uses delicate lines to depict a very palpable sense of time. The etching medium itself—that fine web of lines—mirrors the weathering he illustrates. Observe the layering; how the ink defines volume and decay simultaneously. Editor: And that composition, too. There's a foreground that feels both intimate, with its scraggly bushes, and a distant arch, barely there. The Arch of Dolabella almost fades into the Roman countryside as if even memory itself is slowly forgetting it. It is haunting in its portrayal. Curator: Metz masterfully balances the romantic ruin against the backdrop of the natural landscape. See how the strategic use of shading sculpts the crumbling stonework and how the foliage seems to reclaim its territory. The etching reminds me of Piranesi's work, in which the ruins are an emblem of lost empire and inevitable change. It speaks volumes, even silently. Editor: Exactly! You feel like you're not just looking at stone, but at centuries crumbling before you. There is the sublime in this decay. I imagine myself wandering around the setting from some Brontë novel. It’s the fragility of it all, perhaps; nothing lasts, even stone yields eventually. Metz captures that transient beauty. A little like holding moonlight in your hands. Curator: His intentionality of design truly shows off the beauty and sublimity of these ruins and offers a glimpse into how structures exist within landscape, time, and memory. Editor: And isn’t it lovely to imagine those things? This little drawing offers us entryways to so many imaginings.