Landscape 1893

Curator: Robert David Gauley's watercolor, simply titled "Landscape," presents a verdant scene. It's currently part of the Harvard Art Museums collection. Editor: Immediately, I see a place bathed in light, almost dreamlike in its hazy greens and blues. There’s a tranquility, but also something subtly unsettling. Curator: The tower element suggests a potentially colonial gaze—architecture imposing itself on the natural landscape. Consider the power dynamics inherent in representing a space and its inhabitants in this manner. Editor: That tower, though, it speaks to something timeless, a sentinel watching over the land. The way it’s rendered, almost dissolving into the sky, feels less about dominance and more about belonging. Curator: But belonging for whom? It’s important to consider whose perspective is centered in this idealized view, and whose stories might be absent or erased. Editor: Maybe, but for me, it's the universal symbolism of shelter and observation, filtered through the artist's own emotional landscape. It leaves me pondering what is seen, and what remains unseen.