Landscape with Castle in Distance, after J.M.W. Turner c. 19th century

Curator: Let's consider Miss Bundell's "Landscape with Castle in Distance, after J.M.W. Turner," currently housed at the Harvard Art Museums. Editor: It feels so ethereal, like a memory half-forgotten. The water blurs everything. Curator: Indeed. Bundell's work invites us to consider the very act of replication and artistic labor. Think of the materials, the pigment, the surface. Editor: I imagine her squinting, trying to capture Turner's light, but making it her own quiet mood. Did she ever see the castle herself, I wonder, or just Turner's version? Curator: Interesting thought. It is also about the market forces at play. Turner's influence shaped artistic production and consumption, even down to imitations like this. Editor: It’s an echo then, lovely but faint. I can almost feel Bundell's concentration, her breath held as she paints her own version of a master's vision. Curator: Perhaps Bundell’s copy is as important as Turner's original. Editor: I like the intimacy of that, the thought of her studio filled with the smell of paint and distant castles.