“Almost every rock, every promontory, every river, is haunted by the shadows of the mighty dead,” wrote the English antiquarian Edward Dodwell of his travels in Greece in the early 19th century.
Watercolors by Edward Dodwell and Simone Pomardi from the vast archive of the Packard Humanities Institute are featured in the new exhibition Greece’s Enchanting Landscape at the Getty Villa.
Dodwell was present in Greece during what proved to be a fascinating and complex phase in the history of classical archaeology, as antiquarians and scholars–men of Dodwell’s ilk–came to the country extolling the grandeur and nobility of its ancient past, seeing what they wanted to see, and, in some cases, taking what they wanted to take.
Curator’s Essay: “A Great Passion for Old Stones and Walls”
