Sunrise, Conway Castle 1830

David Cox created this watercolor painting of Conway Castle sometime in the mid-19th century. Look closely, and you can see how he diluted the pigment to achieve a sense of light and atmosphere. The washes of color give the stone walls a hazy, dreamlike quality. Cox was a master of this technique, using it to capture the subtle nuances of light and shadow. This process was part of a larger cultural embrace of landscape painting during the Romantic era. The Industrial Revolution was underway, and artists like Cox were turning to nature and history for inspiration, as an alternative to the rapidly changing world around them. The labor of the artist, applying delicate washes to paper, stands in contrast to the heavy industry that was transforming the British landscape. So, next time you look at a watercolor, remember that it’s not just a pretty picture. It’s a product of its time, reflecting both the beauty of the natural world and the social and economic forces that were shaping it.