Landschap met ruïnes en reizigers 1743

Davide Antonio Fossati created this etching, “Landscape with Ruins and Travelers,” sometime in the 18th century. It shows a landscape, populated with travelers, that is also dotted with the ruins of classical architecture. In the 1700s, European culture was obsessed with the art and culture of ancient Greece and Rome. Ruins from that era were often depicted in paintings and prints. These images spoke to a past age of glory. But they also spoke to the way that time erodes all human achievement. Artists of the time used ruins to comment on the vanity of human ambition. The ruins here also point to the institutions in which Fossati worked. He came from a family of artists who specialized in decorative painting. As such, he worked for royal families in Europe. It is through studying the history of those families that we might better understand the social context of this image.