Lausanne From The West 1816

Curator: J.M.W. Turner painted this watercolor, Lausanne From The West, in 1816. Editor: Mmm, atmospheric! It's a blur of browns and blues, like a dream half-remembered. Are those figures moving down the hill, or am I imagining it? Curator: You have a good eye! It certainly feels ephemeral. And yes, Turner includes many small figures in the foreground making their way along a path. Consider, if you will, how these humble, hard-working folk were contrasted in the Romantic period against dramatic, imposing landscape vistas. Editor: They're almost ghosts, those people! Tiny symbols against that immense cityscape. And is that supposed to be Lausanne in the distance? It barely exists, like a phantom limb. It's very humbling and a little menacing at the same time. It calls into question what's truly present and substantial in this world. Curator: Right, Turner plays with the convention of the picturesque, disrupting expectations. Cityscapes were conventionally emblems of stability and order, but in Lausanne From The West, we get a blurred image, more of a fleeting impression than a solid edifice, especially when it is considered from a more elemental natural surrounding. It speaks to something much deeper, something profoundly spiritual perhaps. Editor: That misty vagueness definitely pushes it into the realm of symbol. Think about it: Lausanne as a place… as a *concept*. All but dissolved into the air, all edges and definitions bleeding, but also becoming timeless as a result. I think the trees contribute to that. Look how bunched they are, becoming something between nature and architectural forms. It really echoes back into medieval symbolic landscapes and maps. Curator: Well put! I find it fascinating how he's using watercolor here, not just to depict a scene, but to create an emotional state. And he almost never lets his forms have sharp outlines. Look closely, how is one thing delineated from any other? Editor: It's like a metaphor for the limitations of human perception and the eternal cycle of life and decay. The people moving on, Lausanne fading. This landscape is almost the *idea* of a landscape, full of cultural history! Curator: Precisely. This has given me a whole new lens through which to appreciate Turner's mastery. Editor: Me too. Makes you wonder what other "phantoms" lie beneath the surface of what we perceive as real, huh?