Landscape paintings are controversial now? In some ways, England has a worse ‘woke’ problem than America.The College Fix reports:
University museum: Paintings of British countryside could elicit ‘dark nationalist feelings’A British museum owned by the University of Cambridge recently “overhauled” its displays with “new signage,” one of which states paintings of the British countryside can conjure up sinister “nationalist feelings.”According to The Telegraph, the Fitzwilliam Museum underwent a “refurbishment” over the last half-decade with “an emphasis on reflecting the ‘evolution of its collection.’”The museum reopened last week with galleries based on themes rather than chronology. A sign for the new “Nature” gallery reads
Landscape paintings were also always entangled with national identity.The countryside was seen as a direct link to the past, and therefore a true reflection of the essence of a nation.Paintings showing rolling English hills or lush French fields reinforced loyalty and pride towards a homeland.
The work “Hampstead Heath” by John Constable (pictured) has more: The “dark side” of its alleged nationalism carries the “implication that only those with a historical tie to the land have a right to belong.”
According to the report, signage for such images comes not long after the group Wildlife and Countryside Link complained to legislators that the British countryside is viewed “as a ‘racist colonial white space.”
Fitzwilliam Director Luke Syson said signage for images like Constable’s “suggest some new ways of looking, without insisting on them.” He scoffed at the notion the museum was becoming “woke.”
“Being inclusive and representative shouldn’t be controversial; it should be enriching,” Syson said. “I would love to think that there’s a way of telling these larger, more inclusive histories that doesn’t feel as if it requires a pushback from those who try to suggest that any interest at all in work by women artists or artists of colour – or subject matter that takes us into the world of LBGT culture – is being ‘radical chic’ or what would now be called ‘woke.’”
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