Landscape full of trees 

This pen and brown ink drawing of a landscape full of trees was created by Franz Kobell, a German artist working in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Kobell's image embodies the period's evolving relationship with the natural world, reflecting the shift from formal, idealized landscapes to more intimate and personal observations. We can see this reflected in the detailed and varied rendering of the foliage. This kind of nature study became increasingly popular as art academies and collecting institutions grew. They influenced artistic tastes and expanded the market for landscape imagery, often collected in albums or portfolios as prized possessions. Art historians rely on a variety of period documents such as estate inventories, art criticism and the records of art academies to better understand the social context of works like these. Such contextual details add to our understanding of the cultural and institutional forces at play in the making of art.