Yale Center of British Art
Jean-Joseph-Xavier Bidauld, Wall with Distant Smokestack, n.d.
Watercolor on wove paper with framing lines in brown ink,
Collection of Charles Ryskamp
Until April 25
Yale Center for British Art
1080 Chapel Street
An inversion of paradise, with Eden here turned to manufacturing, this early 19th century image reminds us that there were train tracks just over the hill from Thoreau’s Walden shack. But at just over three inches wide, as if Alice in Wonderland’s tiny door would open onto Blake’s “satanic mills,” it also promises the smoke from crematoria chimneys in darker places yet to come.
See previous Object Lessons here.