Oak Trees in Nordskoven near Jægerspris, Zealand 1843

P.C. Skovgaard made this large painting with oil on canvas, a common enough choice. But notice how he deploys the medium, layering it in such a way as to build a palpable density. Look at the dark, almost overburdened trees on the left; you can almost feel the weight of their boughs. Skovgaard was part of the Danish Golden Age of painting, a period when artists turned to the local landscape for inspiration and national identity. He took a scientific interest in trees, studying their anatomy and growth patterns, and it shows. But he’s also interested in the broader idea of nature as a provider, a source of national wealth. Though not exactly "labor" in the strict sense, the painting does register the human relationship to the land, and the labor of careful looking. We can think of landscape painting as a kind of industry – producing images that naturalize a certain way of seeing the world. Skovgaard wants us to see not just a beautiful view, but also the rich materiality of Denmark itself.