Landscape (from McGuire Scrapbook) 1830

Curator: This drawing, entitled "Landscape (from McGuire Scrapbook)," dates to around 1830 and we attribute it to W. Eldridge. It’s a lovely example of a pencil sketch, part of a larger scrapbook. Editor: My first impression is of stillness and quiet. The monochromatic tones evoke a dreamlike serenity. It feels intimate, like a personal glimpse into another world. Curator: Precisely. Let's consider the materials and their inherent qualities. Pencil allows for a subtlety and detail often absent in more robust mediums. The paper itself, its texture and weight, plays a role in how the graphite is laid down, creating different densities and effects. Think about how the pencil sketch, in its relative inexpensiveness and portability, made art more accessible to amateur artists during this time. Editor: And the scrapbook format indicates something very interesting about art’s purpose. Scrapbooks were incredibly popular in the 19th century. The practice involved gathering clippings, drawings, letters, and ephemera of all kinds. It was a social activity as much as an aesthetic one. This artwork comes from a specific cultural trend. This could tell us something of how visual media worked, beyond the confines of established institutions. Curator: Yes, it’s important to note that sketchbooks also fulfilled didactic roles within domestic circles. Often filled with landscape sketches which might have taught genteel female consumers what and how to see according to principles of the picturesque. Editor: The visual grammar reminds me of other landscapes from that period, particularly the Romantic movement’s idealized visions of nature. But also, this image seems less grand, more… accessible. Its place in a scrapbook really domesticates the artistic experience. There are few images of labour here, which removes that political tension present in art depicting the rural in other times. Curator: I find that so important – to think of these sketches as the output of social and gendered pressures on amateur artistry. I wonder what it means to appreciate these images alongside artwork with more established claims to grandeur and social value? Editor: I suppose, what remains so fascinating for me is the very act of collecting and archiving. A scrapbook's meaning shifts as social values change over time. Curator: Agreed. Looking at it from the point of view of materiality offers an interesting way to explore these nuances. Editor: Absolutely. Considering it through a social and historical lens opens up avenues of interpretation we might otherwise overlook.