From Dover to Penzance: Watercolor Views of the English Channel
Friday, December 3, 2010 through Sunday, June 5, 2011
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James Baker Pyne, Off Portsmouth, 1837. |
The intersection of land, sea, and sky along England’s southern coastline offered a rich variety of subjects for nineteenth-century watercolor painters. Countless artists visited the white chalk cliffs at Dover, the remote rocky shores of Cornwall, and the many harbor towns and seaside resorts in between, depicting the waters of the English Channel in every conceivable mood and weather condition. Drawn from the Museum’s permanent collection, this exhibition features views of the English Channel by a selection of the period’s most talented and prolific watercolor specialists, including David Cox, Anthony Vandyke Copley Fielding, and Philip James de Loutherbourg. These paintings showcase the natural beauty of this region and bespeak the cultural importance of the Channel as both a narrow and oft-traversed boundary with France and as a maritime gateway connecting England to its vast overseas empire.
