Panoramic Landscape (from Sketchbook) 1835 - 1839

Curator: This is Francis William Edmonds' "Panoramic Landscape" from a sketchbook, created sometime between 1835 and 1839. It’s a pen and ink drawing on paper. The image comes to us via the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Editor: It feels so... expansive. A kind of hopeful tranquility emanates from this simple sketch. Despite the limited detail, the artist has captured such depth. Curator: Indeed. The landscape embodies the Romanticism of its era. See how Edmonds renders the vastness of the American terrain. It resonates with a belief in nature's inherent power, as if divinity is expressed through these open fields. Editor: But it's not just wilderness, is it? Note the clearings with structures. I wonder about the communities nestled within these scenes. How were indigenous populations impacted by this vision of an 'unoccupied' Eden? Curator: That's a critical point. What appears as an objective, innocent portrayal is actually laden with ideology. The light and airy rendering evokes classical pastoral scenes. Notice how the lines guide your eye deeper into an idealized, almost utopian composition. Editor: Which completely obscures the violence enacted on that very land. The image normalizes settlement. I wonder, what symbols within the artwork point towards colonial expansion and control over resources? Curator: It would be hard to say, because, technically speaking, there ARE no overt symbols, it's almost a diagram. Still, the rolling, cultivated lands that take up the image suggest ownership. Perhaps that's enough to tell the tale... Editor: Right, or rather, NOT to tell another, erased, tale. Curator: I see how looking through a contemporary lens invites these vital questions of representation and power. Thanks to this dialogue, I’m seeing how one can interpret, in these quiet strokes, an anticipation of significant societal shifts. Editor: It makes you ponder, who were these landscapes truly "panoramic" for, and at whose expense?