Udsigt over en sø. I mellemgrunden høje træer, i baggrunden bakker 1840

Dankvart Dreyer made this landscape study, "View Over a Lake," in Denmark, likely during the 1830s or 40s, using pencil and brown ink. The Romantic era valued the individual's subjective experience of nature, and landscape painting was a way of evoking emotional states through depictions of the natural world. Notice how Dreyer's sketch captures a panoramic view, complete with lake, trees, and distant hills. The loose, suggestive lines give us the impression of a vast, open space, seemingly untouched. Dreyer would have been part of a growing artistic culture, centered around the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts and the exhibitions it sponsored. Studying the Academy's records and exhibition reviews from the period helps us understand how artists like Dreyer were defining a sense of national identity through landscape imagery. This artistic project was both progressive and conservative, as it sought to create a distinctly Danish art, yet still operated within established institutional structures.