Mount Pilat, Switzerland; verso: Mont Blanc c. 1804

Curator: This is Washington Allston's "Mount Pilat, Switzerland; verso: Mont Blanc," a pencil drawing held here at the Harvard Art Museums. Editor: It's haunting. The soft gradations of gray evoke a sense of solitude and perhaps even the sublime terror of nature. Curator: Allston, deeply influenced by European Romanticism, saw landscape as a reflection of the soul, a space for meditation. We need to situate his travels within his philosophical and spiritual explorations, understanding landscape as a site of identity formation. Editor: Absolutely. The grand tour was a key step in artistic development, one shaped by class, gender, and access to institutions. How did Allston's American identity inform his perspective of these iconic European landscapes? Curator: It's fascinating to consider how Allston's perception of power dynamics—both in terms of artistic influence and socio-political structures—might be embedded in this seemingly simple sketch. Editor: This work, therefore, becomes a record of a complicated relationship between artist, location, and the art world. Curator: Indeed, there is more here than meets the eye.