Asile Impériale de Vincennes, la pharmacie 1858 - 1859

Curator: At first glance, this image feels very contained and focused, doesn’t it? Like peeking into a secret world. Editor: Absolutely, that circular frame just concentrates everything. Before we go further, this gelatin silver print is by Charles Nègre. Titled "Asile Impériale de Vincennes, la pharmacie," dating back to 1858-1859. It resides now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. What symbols stand out to you here? Curator: Definitely the regimented rows of jars and bottles. The order is striking given it's a pharmacy within an asylum. Medicines and treatments are symbols of control and potential cure but juxtaposed with the setting of an asylum the photograph whispers about confinement, maybe social control under the guise of treatment. Editor: It's such a precise tableau of medicine! The men, each in his place, feel less like individual portraits and more like parts of a well-oiled, if slightly haunting, system. Like a dance choreographed by chemicals and diagnoses. But you know, what's odd to me, is that while somber, it lacks true bleakness. Almost clinical, but warmly so. Curator: You're sensing the calm before the storm, perhaps? Or a false sense of security. I wonder, does the warm sepia tone mitigate the potential for darkness or intensify our sense of unease because we associate the sepia tones with history and a sort of supposed ‘gentility?' It is an incredible historical record, offering us an intriguing glimpse of nineteenth-century life in the mental institution. The photographer also seems very focused on the shapes created by all those bottles. Editor: Definitely a visual echo repeating across the space, a visual rhyme scheme. You feel the weight of that history, too? Curator: Indelibly! These bottles, these substances –they tell the story of beliefs and treatments past. Editor: Exactly, Nègre gave us something multilayered and very engaging! I like the composition’s balance: sterile and soulful all at once. Curator: And on so many levels. Charles Nègre shows that there are many ways of seeing, remembering, and engaging with symbols. Editor: It invites us into a past we think we know, yet presents it with a soft yet inquisitive, open ended questioning gaze.