Venice, Nocturne. San Giorgio Maggiore 

Curator: Inchbold’s watercolour, Venice, Nocturne. San Giorgio Maggiore, captures the lagoon in muted tones. It’s quite small, measuring just 179 by 256 millimetres. Editor: It feels dreamlike. The hazy blues and greens evoke a sense of quiet melancholy, like a memory half-faded. Curator: Venice, then and now, is laden with socio-political symbolism. The gondolas, often romanticised, were historically central to Venetian commerce and even control. Inchbold lived through a period of tremendous social change. Editor: The reflection of light on water holds potent symbolism – transformation, the subconscious, illusion. Notice how the church seems to dissolve into the atmosphere; it's almost ethereal, referencing something beyond the material world. Curator: I agree, and this dissolving effect speaks to Venice’s complicated relationship with its own history—a powerful merchant state, now facing the tides of tourism and climate change. Editor: It makes you wonder what future generations will see reflected in these waters, and what Venice will symbolize for them. Curator: Indeed. It's a painting that invites us to consider the ever-changing narrative of places and our relationship to them.