Felsentor, durch das ein Weg mit Reisenden führt, an einem Fluss 

Franz Kobell created this drawing, “Felsentor, durch das ein Weg mit Reisenden führt, an einem Fluss”, using pen and brown ink. Kobell's image evokes the sublime, a popular artistic concept of his time, in which nature is portrayed as both beautiful and terrifying. We see diminutive figures dwarfed by the scale of the natural rock formation. Germany, like other European nations, saw the development of the Grand Tour in the 18th century, in which artists and intellectuals travelled, usually on aristocratic patronage, to see spectacular vistas, picturesque ruins, and sublime landscapes. Kobell's interest is less in geological accuracy and more in aesthetic appreciation of the natural world. This emerging aesthetic attitude was supported by the changing institutional landscape of the art world. Art academies and new public museums helped to foster a culture of artistic appreciation. To understand Kobell, we can look to the art criticism of the time and the travel accounts that helped to shape cultural attitudes toward nature. Art, you see, doesn't exist in a vacuum, but reflects the society that produces it.