Autumn Gold 

Joseph Farquharson likely painted this evocative landscape in Scotland toward the end of the 19th century, though it's hard to pin down an exact date. The scene itself is a fairly straightforward representation of the Scottish countryside, but we might ask what kind of countryside this is and who has access to it. Two pheasants are enjoying it, but who else? Scotland's history is deeply intertwined with its land, and its ownership. After the Highland Clearances, vast swathes of land became the private hunting grounds of the wealthy, often English, elite. While seemingly benign, paintings like this helped to normalize and aestheticize that reality for the viewing public, obscuring the history of displacement and dispossession. Understanding these power dynamics isn't always easy, and we can only uncover them by examining historical documents, social records, and institutional archives that can shed light on the social conditions of artistic production.