Guest curator, author Julian Mitchell

at

CHEPSTOW MUSEUM

Gwy House, Bridge Street, Chepstow, Monmouthshire

MAY 1ST - SEPTEMBER 5TH 2010

Open: Mon-Sat 11am-5pm, Sun 2-5pm, July - Sept open 10.30am, close 5.30pm

Tel: 01291 625981, e-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

A major exhibition of over 70 watercolours on loan from the national collections in London as well as Wales, and from museums around the UK is being staged at Chepstow, the endpoint of the Wye Tour - Britain's first ‘package tour'. Guest curator Julian Mitchell* has selected his ‘best and most interesting' watercolours of the Lower Wye Valley. Here are the sites viewed and visited by the first tourists who came down the river in canopied rowing boats from Ross-on-Wye to Chepstow on a two day trip in the late 18th and early 19th century. They followed in the wake of the Rev William Gilpin whose book popularised the tour and the quest for ‘picturesque' scenery - landscapes that could make, or be compared to, paintings. Many amateurs as well as professional artists came to capture the scenes. This exhibition features works by the masters from that great age of British watercolours, including Turner, Paul Sandby, Michael ‘Angelo' Rooker, Thomas Hearne, Edward Dayes, John & Cornelius Varley, Samuel Palmer, David Cox, Joshua Cristall...

Made possible through a ‘Sharing Treasures' grant from the Welsh Assembly Government. There will also be a programme of associated events and activities throughout the exhibition, please contact the Museum for a programme.

*Julian Mitchell - best known as playwright and screenplay writer - Another Country, Wilde, Inspector Morse etc, but also historian who lives in Monmouthshire and whose passion for the works of art that the area has inspired has led to twenty five years of study and scholarship

BACKGROUND INFORMATION ABOUT THE WYE TOUR

The Wye Tour owes its origins to the Rev John Egerton, vicar of Ross on Wye in the 1740s who entertained his friends by taking them down the river in a pleasure boat. The idea caught on, and by the 1770s the commercial version was becoming established as a two-day trip from Ross to Monmouth on the first, Monmouth to Chepstow on the second. At a cost of one and a half guineas for each day this was not a cheap outing. The boats had a protective awning from the sun or rain, and a table at which the occupants could sketch or write poetry or prose, as the scenery inspired them, and indeed as it became expected for them to do. An itinerary became established to take in the important sites and viewpoints, with stopping places for picnics which were provided as part of the package. This stretch of the Wye had everything to inspire the romantic traveller, the scenery in all its variety, infernal industry, the ruins of Tintern Abbey, castles on cliff tops and the wonders of the Piercefield walks.

The early ‘tourists' had no guidebook to tell them where to look. From the 1770s there were published accounts of some of the high spots. The artist Paul Sandby had been down the Wye and his aquatints of Welsh views did much to persuade people to see the scenes for themselves. But in 1783 the book that was to become the essential companion for all those who ventured down the Wye, was finally published - the Rev William Gilpin's ‘Observations on the River Wye, and several parts of South Wales etc Relative Chiefly to Picturesque Beauty: Made in the Summer of the Year 1770'. Gilpin laid down rules for assessing the picturesque quality of the views encountered on the trip down the river, and while his extreme ideas were exposed to ridicule by some, the search for the picturesque scene became an obsession for the growing number of people who followed faithfully in his footsteps.

The Wye Valley became a mecca for artists and writers as well as the amateur and the increasing popularity of the medium of watercolour, and technical improvements in its portability, produced some wonderful works which have a place in the National collections.

Curator, Chepstow Museum

Bridge Street,

Chepstow

Monmouthshire NP16 5EZ

tel: 01291 625981

e-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it