Design for an Altar with Kneeling Angels Supporting a Crucifix 1634 - 1689

Editor: This is "Design for an Altar with Kneeling Angels Supporting a Crucifix," a drawing by Ciro Ferri from sometime between 1634 and 1689. It’s interesting to see the steps and layers of the altar sketched out in this design. What stands out to you about this work? Curator: I notice the explicit rendering of labor. Consider the act of creating an altar, not just as religious devotion, but as a commissioned piece. Who are the artists and artisans involved? What materials – stone, pigments, precious metals – are being consumed and transformed? Ferri isn’t just designing a spiritual space, he is orchestrating an entire system of production. Editor: So, you see it as a commentary on the work involved? Curator: Exactly! Think of the marble quarries, the metalworkers, the painters…each contributing their specialized labor. The sketch itself becomes a record of this proposed labor, almost like a blueprint for a manufacturing process. The “high art” of Ferri’s design relies on a vast network of “craft.” Where does one begin and the other end? Editor: That's a really interesting perspective. It almost flattens the hierarchy we tend to put on art forms. How might its original context have influenced Ferri's design? Curator: Well, consider the Baroque period’s association with the Catholic Counter-Reformation. Altars were deliberately opulent, visually persuasive instruments of power and faith. Ferri's design demonstrates an understanding of architecture, as propaganda using angels as active laborers to engage the viewers in both production and spirituality. Editor: I never considered the drawing as a manufacturing proposal. Now I see the artist, or artists, as just one cog in the big production wheel, rather than sole creators! Curator: Right. Hopefully, now you will consider labor as much as the sublime form it takes.