Acrobaat zwevend aan de armleuning van een stoel 1728

This print of an acrobat, poised between earth and air, was made with careful incisions on a copper plate. The artist, though anonymous, clearly had skills, etching fine lines to create shadows and textures. Consider the labor involved in the etching process. The chair, too, represents a certain kind of artisanal work – the carving of the wooden frame, the weaving of the cushion, the addition of fringe. The acrobat himself is also a kind of craftsman; his medium is his own body. He has refined it through discipline and repetition to achieve this moment of weightless suspension. But here's the rub: the print is what we might call a ‘reproductive’ image. It could be made in an edition of hundreds or even thousands. This puts it squarely in the realm of early industrial capitalism, where labor is reproduced on a mass scale. So we have a skilled artisan creating an image of another kind of skilled artisan, but doing so in a way that puts traditional craft in question. It makes you wonder: who is really doing the work here?