Projet d'illustration pour Macbeth - trois sorcières assises sur la lande 

Editor: This is Luc-Olivier Merson's illustration project for Macbeth, focusing on the three witches. It's rendered in pencil and ink on paper. It feels like such a raw, preliminary sketch capturing a moment thick with impending doom and otherworldly energy. I’m struck by its incompleteness; what exactly is happening here? Curator: Ah, yes, the Weird Sisters! This image, with its tentative lines and stark contrasts, truly evokes the unsettling atmosphere of the Scottish heath. Imagine standing there, wind whipping around you, witnessing this very scene. What do you think Merson is trying to convey by leaving it so...open-ended? Editor: Maybe it’s about suggesting, rather than explicitly showing, the supernatural, relying on the viewer's imagination to fill in the gaps? I can almost hear their pronouncements echoing in the stillness. It also appears that Merson struggled with the composition: why, otherwise, the 'pentimenti'—the visible traces of adjustments made during the drawing process? Curator: Exactly! These corrections show how Merson wants the witches, at the centre of the stage, to disturb our sense of reality, inviting us into a space of the subconscious; the Romantic obsession with the unseen and the irrational! And look at the riders in the background—do they look intimidated? What does it evoke in you? Editor: They do not appear worried at all. The three men on horseback feel very... unaware? In contrast, the witches command our gaze by appealing to our emotions with open gestures that communicate the impending disruption in fate. It also communicates how small we are and that we are all affected by external factors. Curator: Precisely! What do you feel you’ve learned looking at it? Editor: I see the way Merson balances the tangible world with the ethereal. It gives insight into a fascinating time when Romanticism mixed well with art and the exploration of human emotions. Curator: Indeed! And it leaves you wondering, doesn't it, what twisted prophecies those ink-stained figures might be brewing next?