Trees over the River Frome at Stapleton 1862

James Jackson Curnock made this watercolor painting of trees over the River Frome at Stapleton. Watercolors, often seen as a preliminary medium for sketches, were actually at the heart of Britain's artistic revolution in the 18th and 19th centuries. Unlike oil paints, which demanded the controlled environment of a studio, watercolors were portable. The materials allowed artists to capture the immediacy of a scene en plein air, as we see here, where the artist recorded a very specific moment. Look at the way Curnock has used the transparent qualities of the paint to evoke light filtering through the leaves and reflecting on the water. Watercolor’s portability democratized landscape painting, moving it out of the academies and into the hands of a growing middle class. The relative ease of learning watercolor techniques made artistic expression accessible, blurring the lines between amateur and professional, craft and fine art.