Italian landscape 1771 - 1776

Richard Cooper the Younger created this Italian landscape drawing using pen and brown ink, sometime in the late 18th or early 19th century. It is typical of the picturesque aesthetic then in vogue, emphasizing an idealized vision of nature's beauty and tranquility. But this aesthetic was no innocent pastime. In Britain, wealthy landowners were busy enclosing common land, displacing rural populations to make way for private estates. The picturesque, as a cultural movement, was deeply intertwined with these socio-economic transformations. Artists like Cooper catered to a market of elites who sought to legitimize their power and privilege through the consumption of idealized landscape views. These images conveniently omitted the harsh realities of rural life for the working classes. To fully understand this drawing, one might consult estate records, enclosure acts, and travel narratives of the period to gain a better understanding of how this image represents an idealized vision of the Italian countryside that elides some of the realities of its time.