Landscape; verso: Landscape with Trees 1859

Editor: This small pencil sketch, "Landscape; verso: Landscape with Trees" by Benjamin Champney, feels so delicate and understated. How do you interpret this work? Curator: It’s tempting to see a simple, quiet scene, but consider Champney's context. He was working during a period of intense industrialization and westward expansion, which drastically impacted indigenous populations and the environment. How might this seemingly benign landscape actually reflect those power dynamics? Editor: So, the absence of figures could represent a deliberate erasure or displacement? Curator: Precisely. And the act of sketching, a seemingly innocuous act, becomes a form of claiming, possessing, and framing the land through a colonial lens. Editor: That gives me a lot to think about regarding artistic intention. Curator: Indeed. Art always converses with its cultural moment.