Doctor Syntax kijkt naar een voorstelling in Covent Garden Theatre 1817

Curator: Here we have Thomas Rowlandson's "Doctor Syntax kijkt naar een voorstelling in Covent Garden Theatre," made around 1817. It's a print using etching and watercolor. What catches your eye initially? Editor: Wow, it's like peeking into a miniature world! The sheer density of figures, all those expectant faces in the audience... it's brimming with energy, a captured moment in time. There's a lovely theatrical air that seems heightened by its medium. Curator: Rowlandson's work frequently blurred the lines between high art and popular culture, very much in keeping with his romantic sensibility. Note how the print medium democratized access—consider the social implications of art consumption at the time. These works, which would often find themselves colored by hand in a kind of home production are particularly engaging for their complex engagement of labour and distribution of material. Editor: It makes you think about who was consuming these images, their own backgrounds and stories. There is a delicious flattening of all these figures with subtle gestures rendered within the whole, like ants moving on a hill! I am fascinated by the artist rendering one piece of theatre within another. Curator: Yes, that "play within a play" device draws attention to the constructed nature of spectacle. Rowlandson often depicted social scenes, satirizing the follies and fashions of his era. Considering the availability of print materials, can you comment on what might have influenced his perspective as well as his public engagement. Editor: Indeed, the biting wit comes across even now, over 200 years later. One imagines all sorts of political gossip whispered within the theatre and repeated, perhaps illustrated by Rowlandson's images circulating even more gossip after this theatre's show. The play appears tragic. Perhaps, Syntax's presence acts to frame it as one to learn from? He is there watching us after all. Curator: He would've needed to consider paper quality, the etching process, distribution networks... decisions that were inextricably linked to the content itself. Editor: True! The materiality isn’t separate from the experience—they work in tandem. In this artwork it's an image teeming with detail, and one feels invited into its story... Curator: Exactly, a story both of a theatre within an image, the politics that made that production and the material engagement. All of it reflecting the culture that it critiques and makes accessible for us, now! Editor: Well, I know one thing, I would definitely follow Doctor Syntax for a fun night in the town.