Berglandschap met een wandelaar langs een rivier c. 1825 - 1829

Andreas Schelfhout made this pencil drawing of a mountain landscape with a wanderer by a river in the Netherlands, sometime in the first half of the 19th century. The Romantic era of the 1800s was deeply concerned with nature and the individual's experience of it. In this sketch, we see a lone figure, seemingly at one with his surroundings, which connects to the wider social and cultural context of the time. The sketch's visual codes like the sublime mountain and the small wanderer, create meaning through cultural references and historical associations, echoing a widespread fascination with nature's power. Art historians might use the Dutch national archive to research the popularity of the Romantic movement at the time, understanding how the art market drove the production of these kinds of images. The beauty of art lies in its contingency on social and institutional context.