Through the Village 

Curator: This is “Through the Village”, an oil painting by James Charles. Editor: My first impression? Earthy tones, and a sort of weighty stillness despite the presence of figures. Curator: Note how Charles employs a limited palette, predominantly ochres and browns, to construct a light that's both soft and pervasive, creating a certain unified field. How do you respond to the impasto technique used to describe the architecture? Editor: It gives such palpable presence to the stone walls – you can practically feel the roughness and age. But my eye keeps returning to the woman carrying the basket on her head. It makes you wonder about the labour involved in daily life at that time. I'm immediately thinking about what these items were intended for - the cost, trade, market and access this figure enabled for others? Curator: An astute observation. The basket becomes a crucial focal point, serving as a textural counterpoint to the smooth rendered walls. From a purely compositional standpoint, its placement guides our eyes upwards, echoing the upward slope of the narrow street and the built environment framing this daily moment. Editor: Precisely, and that slope speaks to something as simple, and simultaneously profound, as navigation of space and place in a socio-economic structure. I’m fascinated by this painting in the way the street is both intimate and imposing. What do you think accounts for this complexity? Curator: Consider how the verticality of the walls—essentially blocking our full view—contrasts with the more organic, less constrained forms of the figures. It invites questions around individual agency within fixed environments. The muted colours add to an overall tonal and visual relationship with space, perhaps emphasizing our understanding of a social geography being mapped out through colour itself? Editor: Perhaps... but from my viewpoint, that kind of constrained space emphasizes not freedom of movement for everyone who lived here. It asks me to think, where did the stone from these walls originate and how was that labour conducted in the era this painting evokes? The very limited pallete of oils - likely costly during this time- also suggest at this paintings creation for display in someone's home versus the working-class, everyday spaces this artwork has captured. Curator: Yes, there's no single reading, just potential dialogues around materiality, meaning and message... Editor: Agreed, it is this exchange between materials, modes, subject and socio-economics of display which holds it all together.