Gray’s "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard"

Gray’s "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard"

Robert Hills

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Thomas Gray’s famous poem, written to commemorate a young friend he lost in 1751, offered Hills several Romantic tropes. As a meditation on mortality, the image presents nature as both sympathetic to human emotion and as a bridge to the divine. The artist was a founding member of the Society of Painters in Water-Colours and shared that group’s determination to encourage new public appreciation for the medium. Since the artist was known for his images of animals, it is surprising to find none depicted here. He may have expected contemporary viewers to know Gray’s poem by heart and to recall lines that mention a lowing herd and a moping owl as they contemplated his composition.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Gray’s "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard"Gray’s "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard"Gray’s "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard"Gray’s "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard"Gray’s "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard"

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.