Midas with the Pitcher 1893

Editor: Here we have Walter Crane's "Midas with the Pitcher," created in 1893 using watercolor. It has a fantastical quality; it feels like a dream, or perhaps a nightmare, judging by Midas’ posture. What are your thoughts on this work? Curator: I am immediately drawn to Crane’s technique. Consider the physical labor embedded in watercolor. The careful layering, the control of water and pigment… How does this material—prone to fluidity, defying control—serve to represent a myth about uncontrolled desire, about the deceptive allure of readily available wealth? Editor: That's interesting. So, you're suggesting that Crane chose watercolor intentionally because its inherent properties mirror the themes within the myth of Midas? Curator: Precisely. Also note the Art Nouveau influences. How does Crane embrace and possibly subvert notions of mass production inherent in Art Nouveau with his choice of the unique, difficult medium of watercolor? What tensions can you detect between supposed ‘high’ art and the ‘decorative’ or ‘applied’ arts, and can you explain it in light of the industrial production which marked this period? Editor: Well, the detailed linework suggests a desire for replication, fitting with mass production of images from this era, but then the unpredictable quality of watercolour goes against that desire…It's as if he is caught between different ways of creating art. Curator: Exactly! And consider how the aesthetic nods to Orientalism function. Are they exoticising? Critiquing colonialism, maybe through the implied decadence of Midas, overwhelmed by his excessive wealth? How might we view his relationship to material goods in terms of consumption? Editor: I hadn't considered those colonial undertones. Looking at it now, it complicates my understanding of Midas' plight. Thanks, that's given me a lot to think about! Curator: And me, too. It shows us how paying attention to materials opens new interpretative avenues.