Waltham Abbey, Essex 1835 - 1845

Curator: Before us hangs Peter De Wint’s watercolor drawing, "Waltham Abbey, Essex," created sometime between 1835 and 1845. De Wint’s interest lay in depicting the English countryside, focusing on its architectural and natural features. Editor: Oh, it’s just lovely. It feels quiet, almost sleepy. I could imagine myself sketching right there, feeling the damp air on my face, listening to the birds in the trees. There's such a sense of place to this piece. Curator: I agree. De Wint often made plein-air sketches that aimed at truthful representation, but one has to consider how the representation itself encodes power relations. Who had the time to do it? What assumptions of land ownership does that embody? How do his landscapes, though ostensibly of simple rural places, help construct a specific vision of England? Editor: Mmm, hadn’t thought about that, but I see what you mean. Still, forgetting all that, it’s just so beautifully rendered. Look at the way the light catches the stones. The watercolor work is dreamy. It almost has a…well, not a sadness, but a gentle wistfulness about it. Like remembering something just beyond reach. Curator: Certainly, Romanticism in art was very concerned with such longings. Think about the legacy of enclosure laws and disinheritance. The selective picturesque vision does tend to conceal very real conflicts in the rural English landscape. Editor: Absolutely. Art never exists in a vacuum, does it? All this reminds me that our perceptions and even our appreciation can be deepened when we start to really investigate these complexities. Thanks! Curator: My pleasure! This layering is important, as art isn’t simply pretty. It often subtly reenforces ideologies and belief systems that require serious thinking about.