Isolation can be a lot of things. It can be tiring, lonely at times, and peaceful and even productive at others. For a number of artists, whose work can be found in the Ashmolean's collections, isolation also served as an opportunity for extraordinary innovation and creativity.
In this video, Ashmolean Director, Xa Sturgis, introduces us to a tiny oil sketch on paper by 18th-century Welsh landscape painter Thomas Jones, painted in Naples in the 1780s. The paintings in Jones's Naples series are remarkably undramatic images, and yet they are full of excitement and incredibly modern in feel.
