Thenot and Colinet Lead Their Flocks Together, from Thornton's "Pastorals of Virgil" 1821

Editor: Here we have William Blake's woodcut, "Thenot and Colinet Lead Their Flocks Together, from Thornton's 'Pastorals of Virgil'," created in 1821. There's a certain rustic quality to it. The high contrast between the dark and light areas really emphasizes the figures and the landscape, but it all feels a little… stark. What strikes you about it? Curator: The starkness, as you call it, is quite deliberate. Blake is engaging in a dialogue with the pastoral tradition itself, which often romanticizes rural life, obscuring the labor and the social hierarchies inherent in it. This woodcut, originally intended for a children’s book, presents a world that's seemingly simple, but Blake subtly challenges that simplicity. Notice the shepherd’s posture, almost bowed – what does that communicate to you? Editor: It almost seems like a reluctant pose, not quite celebratory. Is Blake maybe commenting on the actual hardships of shepherding, even within a seemingly idyllic scene? Curator: Exactly! Consider also the context of Romanticism. While valuing nature, it also wrestled with industrialization and social upheaval. Blake's sharp contrasts, achieved through the woodcut medium, create a tension – a visual representation of the anxieties surrounding social roles and power structures, and labor division in that time. How does situating it within this social-political context shift your understanding of the piece? Editor: It really does change things. I initially saw a quaint pastoral scene, but now it feels charged with a critique of class and a subtle resistance to idealized rural fantasies. Curator: And perhaps, a questioning of whose story gets told, and how. Art provides these opportunities to dissect history! Editor: I'm beginning to see how seemingly simple art can contain really complex social and historical insights!