Forest landscape 

Franz Kobell made this Forest Landscape with pen and black ink sometime in the late 18th or early 19th century. It's a pastoral scene, yet it's also clearly staged, self-consciously picturesque. Kobell was working at a time when landscape art was becoming increasingly popular in Europe. This was partly due to the influence of the Enlightenment, which emphasized the importance of reason and observation. But it was also due to the rise of Romanticism, which celebrated the power and beauty of nature. The institutions of art, such as the academies and museums, played an important role in shaping these trends. They provided artists with training and patronage and helped to promote certain styles and subjects. Kobell himself worked as a court painter in Munich, giving him a privileged position within the art world. Art historians can study the sketchbooks and letters of artists like Kobell to better understand the social and institutional contexts in which they worked. The meaning of art is always contingent on such contexts.