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Editor: This watercolor landscape depicts a ruined castle, attributed to Lady Susan Elizabeth Percy. It feels like a document of a specific place and time. What strikes you about this piece? Curator: I'm drawn to the materiality of this work. Notice the artist's hand evident in the application of the washes and the visible texture of the paper. It speaks to the rise of the picturesque and the consumption of landscape as a commodity, doesn’t it? Editor: I see what you mean. How does the artist's choice of such a dilapidated structure fit into that? Curator: Consider the context: the decline of feudalism and the rise of industrial capitalism. Ruins become romantic symbols, consumed by a rising middle class. Percy isn’t just depicting a ruin; she's offering it up for aesthetic consumption. Editor: That’s fascinating! I never thought about the ruin itself being a commodity. Curator: Exactly! It reveals how even the remnants of the past are re-purposed within the dominant economic structures.