Villeneuve les Avignon, Languedoc c. 19th century

Curator: This is James Duffield Harding's "Villeneuve les Avignon, Languedoc" currently residing in the Harvard Art Museums. Editor: It’s incredibly atmospheric. The stillness of the water, the texture of the stone...it gives the scene a hushed, contemplative quality. Curator: Harding, active in the 19th century, used lithography extensively. Notice how he renders the light. The tower looms. Editor: The material quality is striking—the way the image emerges from the stone itself. Lithography allowed for a certain democratisation of image making, making art more accessible. Curator: Indeed. And the tower resonates with symbolic weight, a sentinel witnessing centuries of human experience, a reminder of time’s passage. Editor: And the boats in the foreground, what of the labor and materials required to build those vessels? The economic systems that shape our world. Curator: A dialogue between material reality and enduring symbolic forms. Editor: Exactly, Harding’s print invites us to consider how art reflects both the practical and the profound.