Allegory c. 1924

Curator: What strikes me first is this feeling of ancient grace mixed with a kind of... well, almost unsettling ambiguity. Editor: Indeed. You’re looking at Sir Thomas Monnington's "Allegory." Monnington, who lived from 1902 to 1976, offers us here a landscape populated by figures that seem to exist just outside our grasp. The support measures over 1 by 2.5 meters. Curator: Outside our grasp, exactly! The figures almost melt into the landscape, their forms echoed in the gentle hills. It feels like a dream where the subconscious takes center stage. The artist used a rather muted palette, didn't he? Editor: Absolutely. And that muted tone, along with the poses of the figures, hints at a deeper symbolic language, doesn't it? The group near the center, interacting with the tree, evokes so many narratives—from classical myths to Edenic tales. Curator: It’s as if Monnington has peeled back a layer, revealing the raw, archetypal energies that underpin our stories. This makes me think about how the landscape reflects our own inner terrain. Editor: And I'm left contemplating the timelessness of these recurring images and how Monnington gives them new life.