Landschappen met kasteeltorens en bruggen over een dal en beek 1840

Johannes Tavenraat created this pencil drawing, "Landscapes with Castle Towers and Bridges over a Valley and Brook," in the Netherlands sometime in the 19th century. The image features multiple sketches on one page of romantic landscapes complete with castle towers and stone bridges. Tavenraat was working during a time of rising nationalism in Europe, and we see the visual codes of Romanticism at play here. The remote, idealized, and wild landscapes of the time speak to the power of nature as a source of sublime experience and national identity. Castles were also seen as symbols of a nation's heritage and historical continuity. The institutional history here is of art academies and the pedagogical practice of landscape drawing, emphasizing the picturesque. Through the historian's lens, we can analyze how Tavenraat's drawing reflects the cultural values and socio-political context of the Netherlands in the 19th century using historical documents and art criticism of the time.