Arcadian landscape

George Barret, the younger

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

A founding member of the Old Society of Painters in Water-Colours in 1805 and the author of "The Theory and Practice of Water-Colour Painting" (1840), George Barret numbers among the most influential draftsmen of his generation. In his idyllic landscape watercolors, Barret sought to replicate the golden tones of varnished oil paintings by Claude Lorraine (1600–1682) and Nicolas Poussin (1593/94–1665). Here, a mass of fiery leaves, its irregular pattern achieved through superimposed layers of fluid washes, fills the center of the composition and contrasts with the subtler yellow tones of a distant farmhouse and rustic bridge. Amid the warm harmony of reds, oranges, yellows, browns, and greens, the shepherd's bright blue cap sounds the single cool note.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.

Metropolitan Museum of Art