Løse studier af træer, himmel og bakkedrag 1839

Dankvart Dreyer created this pencil drawing, “Løse studier af træer, himmel og bakkedrag”, on paper at an unknown date. Dreyer came of age during the Golden Age of Danish Painting. This era saw artists exploring national identity through landscapes, but also coincides with the end of the transatlantic slave trade and the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. It seems that Dreyer is looking out towards a horizon, with the sky taking up more than half the page. The soft marks of the pencil create the sense of an open vista. The landscape is muted, pale in color. Our eye is drawn to the right, where he renders a cluster of trees with more pronounced pencil marks. Dreyer captures nature as a study in simple lines and forms, hinting at the beauty of the Danish landscape. The simplicity invites us to consider our own relationship to the land, and to the changing cultural and environmental landscape we inhabit.