When the average person considers art in the 18th and 19th centuries, it’s easy to assume that oil painting was by far the dominant medium. But the era is also known to art scholars as the “golden age” of a much different palette (and one that every elementary school artist has worked in): watercolors.
“You can almost see the touch of the artist and feel the immediacy with watercolors,” notes Dr. Dena Woodall, Curator of Prints and Drawings at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
“Even though [watercolor works] were often hung at a disadvantage in places like the Royal Academy. But they would rival oil paintings, especially with the richness of colors. The watercolor artists eventually broke out into their own societies.”
The MFAH will present more than 70 works of mostly watercolors, but also drawings, prints, oil sketches, and ephemera in Picturing Nature: The Stuart Collection of 18th- and 19th Century British Landscapes and Beyond.
Bold named artists whose works are represented here (and are mostly British) include John Constable, J.M.W. Turner, Paul Sandby, Richard Wilson, John Robert Cozens, Samuel Palmer, and Thomas Gainsborough. The exhibit runs through July 6.
Interestingly, in the show’s catalog, MFAH Director Gary Tinterow notes that for centuries landscapes and nature subjects were considered “a lesser artistic pursuit” than, say, portraiture, historical, or religious subject matter. That began to change as artists began to travel more—and it didn’t hurt that watercolors were more portable than oils.
Some artists would even begin their works out in the wild before returning to their studios to embellish and complete them.
“Nature is the fountain’s head, the source from which all originality must spring,” John Constable wrote to a friend in 1802 and is quoted in the exhibit’s catalog. And that’s certainly the case here.
“They had been inspired by the Dutch, but the Brits really took hold of the landscape genre and especially in watercolors.” Woodall says. “They’re experiencing nature. It’s at a time when the modern world is coming with industrial changes and there’s urban gloom in the cities. There’s more of an interest in going out into nature.”
She adds that you can even see the evolution of landscape art within one artist, noting that an early work by J.M.W. Turner is more straight topographical in nature, while a later work adds more idealized elements. And while British landscapes make up the majority of locations for the works in this exhibit, museumgoers will also get glimpses of Italy, France, and Greece.
“It’s all about color swaths in the later work by Turner. A balance between the topography and color and light.” Woodall also notes the contemporary influence of the era’s “romantic poets” like William Blake and William Wordsworth on the images of the time. In fact, many of the paintings in Picturing Nature would seem right at home on the cover of some poetry classics edition.
The exhibit’s main benefactor is Houstonian Francita Stuart Koelsch Ulmer. She established the Stuart Collection in 2015 under Woodall’s guidance as a tribute to her parents, and the works in Picturing Nature have been steadily acquired over the past decade.
The family itself has had a long, historical, and fruitful relationship with the city of Houston (stretching back to its founding) and the MFAH over the generations. Ulmer herself became enamored of the subject of nature and the beauty of the English countryside some decades ago after inheriting a John Constable oil sketch A View on the Banks of the River Stour from her grandmother, which will be on display.
“She’s seen the exhibit and went to my lecture,” Woodall offers. “And she’s in her 90’s now!”
Finally, Woodall expresses her personal enthusiasm for the medium of watercolors, which she feels hits the viewer in a different way than oils while presenting a different creative and mechanical challenge to the artist.
“With watercolors, you’re moving from light to dark, not dark to light like with oils. You’re starting with that bare sheet of paper and increasingly adding luminosity, enriching colors and adding tonal values,” she sums up. “You’re starting with plain white—and you don’t ever go back to it.”
Picturing Nature: The Stuart Collection of 18th- and 19th Century British Landscapes and Beyond runs through July 6 at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston’s Audrey Jones Beck Building, 5601 Main. For information or to purchase tickets/times, call 713-639-7300 or visit mfah.org. Admission price varies.
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2025.
