Salisbury from Wilton Park n.d.

Curator: This etching is titled "Salisbury from Wilton Park." It's an undated work, and we attribute it to John Clerk of Eldin. Editor: Wow, there's such an incredible sense of space in this little print. It’s dreamy, a bit like staring at a memory. I love how the looming trees frame the delicate spire in the distance. Curator: Framing, I think, is exactly right. It really speaks to the romanticist tradition of the sublime, but more domestic, maybe. Eldin, drawing on picturesque ideals, centers the composition on Salisbury Cathedral as a kind of historical anchor and declaration of power. How does the viewpoint shift the reading? Editor: The view is quite soft and hazy – but something is interesting – because it is a constructed view. One would not naturally view that exact scene with those set of contrasts. The Cathedral looms so high that, instead of giving the city a grounding and imposing power, instead appears a little ghost-like. What is the place of the town beneath the holy figure? It reminds me of trying to hold onto something precious as it disappears behind the veil of passing time and fog of memory. Curator: A good way of putting it. Eldin’s use of etching to produce multiple copies complicates our contemporary view, informed by Walter Benjamin, of the aura around artworks. Yet the details – look at the hatching! - make this one feel special, almost like he wants us to see something worth treasuring despite its replication. And consider the political and philosophical ramifications; this idealized picturesque representation might be at odds with the realities of 18th-century urban life. Editor: So much depth comes out of this small two-dimensional etching. The whole print hums with something both seen and unseen – the physical towers over everything, like an unreachable truth of our origins, as if civilization has appeared out of nowhere… Curator: Which neatly leads back to thinking about power, the legacy of institutions…and the intersection of personal perception with public realities. A landscape like this isn’t just about beauty, it is very carefully constructed. Editor: Agreed. You start noticing all the ways our views are curated, just like art, haha! Thanks for unpacking the history of this etching, seeing it from a socio-historical lens has enhanced my understanding of this work!