Collcombe Castle, Devonshire 

Curator: Welcome, everyone. We are here looking at "Collcombe Castle, Devonshire," a pencil drawing by James Ward. There's no date associated with it, but Ward was active primarily during the late 18th and first half of the 19th centuries. It captures the likeness of various buildings in what appears to be rural England. Editor: There's a tranquility here, isn't there? Despite the detailed rendering, there's this whispery lightness to it. Almost like looking at a half-forgotten dream. The scene itself is compelling - there's a story wanting to be told. Curator: The architecture is very precise, particularly in rendering stonework. Ward uses hatching to denote shadows and bring out depth on the buildings and to create textures for the thatched roofs. There is attention paid to depicting the daily life that surrounds architecture: the livestock present such as the dog and the horse. This may speak to an understanding and integration of different laborers involved in this setting: farmers, masons, estate holders, and their relationships in making the building a functioning and lived space. Editor: Absolutely. You can almost feel the cool of the stone buildings and barn against the warm, dry hay where the horse is standing. It brings out a certain quiet pride of place. It's not grand in the aristocratic sense; instead, the charm seems to highlight how people carve out livable space, regardless of the structural origin or design. Curator: True. It certainly complicates how we categorize art sometimes. Here, drawing stands on a fascinating point of landscape, architecture, and rural production to bring about a certain way of life, a view from an area now centuries away from our present lives. Editor: Right! Now, how often do we stop to think about how an animal’s life and experience gets shaped around architecture itself? It does make one wonder if this unassuming drawing tells as much about human ingenuity as it does our intertwined destiny. Food for thought!