Wooded Scene with a Couple Laying under a Tree, by a Stream 

Robert Smirke made this watercolor and graphite drawing called ‘Wooded Scene with a Couple Laying under a Tree, by a Stream’. Smirke was an important member of the Royal Academy, the official body for the training and exhibition of artists in England. This drawing reveals how artists looked to history and myth for their subject matter. The reclining figures wear laurel wreaths, and classical drapery, all alluding to the aesthetic values of Ancient Greece and Rome. In Britain during the late 18th and early 19th centuries, these values were associated with the ruling elites, who built houses in the neoclassical style and saw themselves as heirs to the traditions of democracy and empire. Here, Smirke's drawing can be understood as a statement of cultural power. If you’d like to learn more, look for the artist's letters, Royal Academy records and information about British collecting in this period. You can then better appreciate how art is always entangled with the society that produces it.