Gezicht op een weg tussen hoge begroeide rotsen 1628 - 1652

Jan Both made this evocative drawing of a road between rocks using pen and brown ink, with brush in brown and gray. Painted in the Netherlands in the mid-17th century, this landscape is not simply a representation of nature, but an idea of it. It evokes a sense of the sublime, that is closely linked to social history. The rise of landscape art coincided with a growing urban population, removed from the realities of rural life, and a wealthy merchant class, eager to display its taste and status. Both's Italianate landscapes were highly sought after. To understand the image, one must look at period travel accounts, to study the market for Dutch art, and explore the aesthetic theories of the time. By doing so we can recognize the ways the natural world comes to us through layers of cultural and institutional mediation.