Landschap met twee figuren onder een groep bomen

Jean Baptiste Louis Hubert produced this drawing, "Landscape with two figures under a group of trees," in the Netherlands in the first half of the 19th century. Here we see a relatively humble scene, sketched in graphite, depicting two figures at rest under some trees. In the context of the Netherlands, this scene represents an aesthetic that has turned away from the grandiosity of courtly life and is instead focusing on the natural world and everyday people. During this period, the Netherlands was in a period of rebuilding and redefining its national identity after French occupation. Landscape art provided a means through which to imagine a new future by recalling an idyllic and peaceful past. To learn more about this period in Dutch history and the rise of landscape art, one could look to the archives of art academies and museums in the Netherlands. Understanding art as contingent on social and institutional context is essential to understanding its meaning.