John Elderfield’s 1985 study of Kurt Schwitters more than once relates his work to the Picturesque tradition, likening him to those early Picturesque travellers who surveyed landscape through city eyes. Taking Elderfield’s idea as a starting -point, this essay contests the widely held claim that Kurt Schwitters’ Merz Barn was conceived as a private, regressive work that manifests the artist’s retreat from 20th century avant-garde practices.