14. A Close or Confined Scene, with Little or No Sky 

Curator: Alexander Cozens’s “14. A Close or Confined Scene, with Little or No Sky” presents a thicket of dense foliage. It’s almost claustrophobic, isn't it? Editor: It absolutely is! My first thought was of over-inked woodblocks and a very tactile printing process. The lack of sky really focuses us on the materiality of the landscape, doesn't it? Curator: Precisely. Cozens was quite radical. He used blots, almost like automatic writing, to spark his landscape compositions. It’s like he was saying, "Here's the raw matter of the world—make of it what you will!" Editor: And consider how the paper itself becomes part of the composition – the stark white contrasting with the dense ink. It's about the printing as much as the place, wouldn't you agree? Curator: Yes, indeed! Cozens invites us to find the sublime not in grand vistas but in the gritty, immediate experience of the material world. Editor: It makes me think about how our understanding of nature has always been filtered through technology and our own means of production. Curator: Right? Cozens asks us to consider the wildness that exists even within confinement. Editor: Well, now I’m thinking of the labor involved, the pressure of the press, the wear and tear... Curator: And I'm thinking that even a blot can hold a universe.