The Enchanted Home A Pastoral Landscape Surmounted by Cupid 

Editor: This is François Boucher's "The Enchanted Home A Pastoral Landscape Surmounted by Cupid," an oil painting. I am really drawn to the ornate frame painted directly onto the canvas itself. How do you approach something that so deliberately blurs the line between painting and decoration? Curator: Precisely. Look at the means of production here. Oil paint, of course, allows for that incredible detail in the swirling faux frame. Boucher, catering to aristocratic tastes, essentially markets the *idea* of refined, cultured life itself as a commodity. The painting almost mocks the desire for landscapes as decorative objects. It's consumption packaged as high art. Editor: So, is it challenging the separation of art and craft then? Curator: Absolutely. The painting points to how "high" art relies on "lower" forms of skilled craft, like trompe l'oeil, to gain its value. Consider, too, the pastoral subject. What is the labor behind creating such a romantic landscape? This artifice naturalizes and obscures the labor of the working class, while promoting the opulent lifestyle of its patrons. What do you make of the cupid at the center? Editor: It feels... ironic? Placed there as another emblem of pleasure available for purchase? Curator: Exactly. Cupid himself becomes part of the display. Boucher masterfully uses materiality to critique and participate in the very system he represents, which creates value by turning all things to décor and art into objects of pleasure. Editor: It's amazing to consider how materials and production can hold such a powerful message about society and wealth. Curator: It reveals how art, like any other object, exists within systems of material exchange and economic relationships. Seeing that has changed how I view these romantic landscapes, and I hope it does for you, too.