Panorama taken from Helderberg, showing the Hottentot’s Holland Mountains and the north coast of False Bay with Devil’s Peak in the distance c. 1777 - 1778

This panorama, showing the view from Helderberg, was drawn with pen, ink, and watercolour by Robert Jacob Gordon, who died in 1795. Look closely, and you can see the impressive sweep of the landscape. But notice too the handwork that has gone into the making of the image: the careful hatching of the pen, the subtle gradations of the watercolour. This is an image produced through methodical and painstaking labour. Gordon was a military man, and the image has a distinctly colonial purpose. But at the same time, it’s also a work of art, deeply engaged with the qualities of paper, pen, and pigment. The combination of cartographic precision, and artistic sensibility, places the drawing at the intersection of science and aesthetics, and also raises the question of how such images were, and still are, implicated in wider political projects. Hopefully, this gives you something to think about.