The Diligence in the Alps n.d.

Editor: Here we have "The Diligence in the Alps," a landscape attributed to Thomas Allom, using ink, pen, and what looks like print on paper. There’s a real sense of drama – the horses are straining, the landscape’s imposing. What pulls you in when you look at it? Curator: Ah, that diligence, what a daredevil! It's hurtling through a space that feels both majestic and terribly precarious, don't you think? The pen and ink allow Allom to create these delicate washes that suggest vast distances and weather unlike anything I've felt. The monochromatic palette pushes a dramatic scene toward something bordering on dream or memory. It really is that edge that the Romantics were obsessed with... What sort of story might we imagine unfolding? Editor: That’s what I’m wondering! The vastness juxtaposed with this tiny coach making its way across makes me consider the insignificance of people against nature. Curator: Exactly! But it is our very human impulse, our little drama playing out *within* that landscape, that gives the whole thing its resonance, right? Allom gives equal weight to the landscape itself, and that brave or foolish little diligence... Are we dwarfed or are we the main characters here? Or perhaps we are always both? Editor: I never thought about it that way before. The people are dwarfed but at the same time they help shape the way you see the space around them. Thanks for your insight! Curator: My pleasure. It’s a useful reminder for me, too, that every mark an artist makes is part of a wider world. We find our bearings precisely by relating to that wider world, I guess.