Amor and Psyche 

Editor: Here we have what looks like an oil painting, called "Amor and Psyche" by François Lemoyne. It’s a Baroque piece depicting figures from mythology. I'm immediately struck by the softness of the painting, almost dreamlike. What draws your eye when you look at this work? Curator: I'm immediately interested in the materiality of the work. Look at the layers of oil paint and how Lemoyne builds form through a careful accumulation of pigment. Consider, too, what went into making this oil paint accessible; the grinding of pigment by apprentices, the global trade networks involved in procuring those pigments... It hints at a whole system of production. What does the handling of material suggest to you about class structures in 18th-century France? Editor: So, not just the artist's hand, but all the hands involved in getting the paint onto the canvas. Do you think that influences the way we should understand the final image? Curator: Absolutely. The artist becomes less a solitary genius and more a key player within a complex system. And consider the audience! Commissioned pieces like this would have been exclusive, viewed by a select few who understood its allegorical language and could afford such luxury. Editor: It's interesting to think of the painting less as this unique artwork and more as part of a larger… ecosystem. Thinking about those original viewers really does make the piece come alive in a new way. Curator: Precisely! It challenges this romantic idea of artistic creation, prompting a closer look at the processes and the social forces that allow the art to exist in the first place. It forces us to re-evaluate the traditional hierarchy that positions “high art” above the everyday labour that makes it possible.