Mountainous Landscape, or, The Group of Trees 1640

Curator: This is Laurent de La Hyre's "Mountainous Landscape, or, The Group of Trees," a work held at the Harvard Art Museums. Editor: It feels so meticulously lonely. All those tiny, precise lines crafting this grand vista... like etching a feeling more than a place. Curator: The technique certainly speaks to 17th-century printmaking, but consider how these landscapes offered a form of escapism to urban audiences, projecting ideals of nature. Editor: I can see that! But also, that lone tree, leaning so dramatically... is it a symbol of resilience, or just a good excuse for La Hyre to show off? Curator: Perhaps both? Landscape art often negotiates between observation and symbolic language, engaging with both individual and collective identities. Editor: Right, right... history, society... but for me, it’s that feeling. That quiet hum of being utterly, beautifully alone. Curator: A sentiment that, no doubt, resonated then as it does now.