Tintern Abbey in Monmouthshire, Wales is best known through William Wordsworth's famous ode "Lines, Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey". Yet the site was established as a tourist locale decades before William and Dorothy Wordsworth undertook their walking tour of the district in 1798.
"Enchanting Ruin: Tintern Abbey and Romantic Tourism in Wales" is an exhibition exploring the richness and complexity of Tintern Abbey as a symbol and destination in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the golden age of picturesque tourism in Britain. Drawing upon a wealth of accounts by travelers, poets, guides, cartographers, artists, antiquarians and (even) locals, a lively and contradictory picture of this iconic Romantic site emerges.
The exhibition contains 18th and early 19th century books, engraved plates from books, maps, including two enormous county maps from the early 1800s, separate colored prints and ephemera in the form of a guide sold at Tintern for people to take through the ruins with them.
The exhibition, curated by Suzanne Matheson of the University of Windsor, includes a section devoted to the Claude mirror - an 18th century optical device people took with them on tours of the Wye Valley. It was used to look at landscape, to help frame and compose a view, and was also a handy device for sketching a scene - especially for amateur artists. Some reproduction mirrors are included along with 18th century books that discuss the mirrors, or record their use by Romantic tourists. A digital slideshow of sights throughout the Wye Valley region of Wales and Tintern Abbey through the Claude mirror by contemporary artist Alex McKay is a feature the exhibition.
Special Collections Library located on the 7th floor of U-M's Harlan Hatcher Graduate Library Mon-Fri. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Sat. 10 a.m. - noon.