Until 31 March Dartmoor: A Wild and Wondrous Region

Moor than meets the eye and RAMM have collaborated to present ‘Dartmoor, a Wild and Wondrous Region’, which tells the story of how Dartmoor was perceived through the eyes of artists during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The largest exhibition of its kind in a generation, it includes oil paintings, watercolours, early photographs and postcards from RAMM’s own collection as well as loans from British museums and private collections, many of which have rarely been seen in public before.

The exhibition is one of the outcomes of the Moor than meets the eye project, ‘In the Footsteps of the Victorians’, which has produced a detailed history of the changes that took place during the Victorian era, transforming the communities and landscape. These developments were captured by artists and the RAMM exhibition traces the story of Dartmoor, from a ‘dreary mountainous tract’ to the ‘epitome of the picturesque’. This dramatic change in popular opinion was largely brought about through the imagination of visiting artists, such as Samuel Palmer, J.M.W.Turner and Thomas Rowlandson, as well as local artists, such as William and F.J. Widgery. The coming of the railways also brought ever greater numbers of tourists to Exeter and Dartmoor and made Dartmoor landscape art immensely popular.

Gallery 21, Royal Albert Memorial Museum (RAMM), Exeter - Free Entry 10am to 5pm Tue to Sun

In addition, there will be a number of associated events such as Dartmoor guided walks, a talk on Interpreting Dartmoor’s Prehistoric Archaeology and Mr Mortimer’s Wild and Wondrous Travelling Exhibition of Dartmoor for all the family on 14th February. For more information visit www.rammuseum.org.uk

A book documenting the Wild and Wondrous Region exhibition is also available, based on the project ‘In the footsteps of the Victorians’ which involved volunteers from communities across Dartmoor in researching the history of the Wrey Valley and surrounding area on the eastern edge of Dartmoor during the nineteenth and early twentieth century; the book includes fascinating insights on the social and economic changes brought about by the arrival of the railway in the 1860s.