Italian landscape at twilight 1850

Andreas Achenbach painted this "Italian Landscape at Twilight" using oil on canvas. Traditional methods and materials like these are important to consider because they have become such an established fine art practice. Achenbach's technique involves layering colors to achieve a sense of depth and atmosphere. The way he applied the paint impacts the texture of the work. Look closely, and you'll see how the brushstrokes build up the forms of the land, water, and sky. It's a careful, controlled process, but one that relies on an established way of working with these materials. Oil paint, commercially available, was itself a product of industrialization, even by the mid-19th century. The work involved in producing these paints, from grinding pigments to mixing oils, was largely invisible to the artist and the viewer. Considering the materials and methods used by Achenbach helps us to think about the social and economic context in which the work was made, challenging the idea of the artist as an isolated genius.