Meer van Zürich 1858 - 1859

This is Johannes Tavenraat's sketch of Lake Zurich, created sometime before his death in 1881. This simple drawing, now housed in the Rijksmuseum, encourages us to think about the cultural value placed on landscape and its institutions. The image is a quick, informal sketch of a famous landmark. Tavenraat was Dutch, but the subject of the sketch is Swiss. As travel became more accessible in the 19th Century, a market grew for images of picturesque scenery. Museums and galleries dedicated to landscape painting educated the public about the aesthetic appreciation of the natural world. The sketch creates meaning through the cultural associations of the landscape genre. It would have been informed by the tastes and trends of the art market. To understand Tavenraat's place in this story, we might ask what other images of Switzerland were popular at the time, and what institutions fostered that popularity.