Summit of Mount Washington 1869

Editor: So this is "Summit of Mount Washington" by Winslow Homer. It looks like it was created as an illustration. The landscape feels harsh but there’s a certain elegance to the figures. What’s your take on this piece? Curator: It's got a wonderfully weird tension, doesn't it? The sublime mountain, rendered with all this precise detail, playing backdrop to a scene of… well, leisure. It makes me think about how we tame and consume landscapes, and how class plays into that. What do you make of the scale of the figures relative to the mountain? Editor: That's interesting. The figures seem small, almost insignificant, yet they are very carefully drawn. So it’s about conquering nature, but also being humbled by it? Curator: Precisely! Homer gives us both the aspiration and the reality, the grand vista and the slightly absurd social scene playing out upon it. It's a brilliant observation, I think. I'll never look at a mountain the same way again!