The Mermaid Family 

Editor: We're looking at "The Mermaid Family," a watercolor painting by Edward Burne-Jones. The composition, with these figures rendered in muted tones amidst darting fish, feels quite unusual, almost dreamlike. What can you tell me about how the artist crafted this image? Curator: Well, let's think about the labor involved. Watercolor, often associated with preliminary sketches, is used here for the final piece. This immediately challenges a hierarchy, doesn't it? Was Burne-Jones, consciously or unconsciously, subverting expectations about "finished" art? And the social context, of course, plays a role; he's creating during a period of immense industrial change, so does the deliberate return to handcraft, with all its imperfections, represent a resistance to the dominance of machine-made goods? Editor: That's a really interesting perspective! I hadn't thought about it as a response to industrialization. Does the choice of watercolor impact the meaning itself? Curator: Absolutely. Watercolors often connote fragility, ephemerality. It reinforces the sense of this mythological scene being delicate, a fleeting vision almost lost in the tide. He also doesn't seem to be trying to hide the techniques either; how is the surface treated, and does the visibility of that treatment give us any clues to its construction? Consider the layering and the brushwork. Does that reveal an engagement with commodity? Editor: So, rather than just seeing it as a pretty picture of mermaids, we should also consider the social and economic forces that might have shaped the artist’s choices in terms of medium and technique? Curator: Precisely. It shifts our focus from mere representation to understanding the material conditions of artistic production. We understand what this watercolor on display truly signifies! Editor: I see the work in a whole new light. Thinking about it in terms of materials and labor adds a whole other layer of meaning that I had completely missed. Thanks! Curator: It encourages you to challenge hierarchies; the materiality really does reveal the process by which such hierarchies and traditional art production occurs.