Hermont [Armant], ancient Hirmonthis. Nov. 26th, 1838. 1846 - 1849

Editor: This watercolor by David Roberts, titled "Hermont [Armant], ancient Hirmonthis. Nov. 26th, 1838," painted between 1846 and 1849, has a melancholic beauty. I'm struck by how the broken columns in the foreground contrast with the standing architecture in the distance. What's your interpretation? Curator: The layering of those ancient structures in the background alongside those crumbling columns, executed in watercolor—a readily transportable medium—hints at something profound about artistic production in a colonial context. Consider the labor involved in quarrying, transporting, and erecting these massive stone columns initially, then fast forward to Roberts’s artistic labor. Is he romanticizing the exotic "Orient", or documenting the physical remnants of exploited labour? Editor: That's interesting. So, you're focusing on the materials and the process and even the setting, suggesting perhaps a critical view of its historical moment and maybe of art-making in general? Curator: Precisely. Roberts, in choosing watercolor, a relatively accessible material, could mass produce these images and circulate them widely to an eager Western audience fascinated by antiquity and expansion, obscuring the toils and appropriation associated with it. I wonder if he directly sourced pigment materials from the land itself... Did Roberts grind the rocks he found on site to get his watercolor pigment? Editor: Wow, that changes how I see the image! I hadn't considered the availability and use of materials. Curator: It invites us to rethink "ancient" as more than an aesthetic theme. How are these materials—the pigments, the paper, and the very stones represented—caught in a web of exchange and exploitation? Editor: That is really insightful. I'll never look at a landscape watercolor in the same way again! Curator: Excellent. Analyzing artworks through the lens of production reveals layers of meaning previously obscured.