Waterfall with Drawing Artist 

Hubert Robert probably painted this scene, *Waterfall with Drawing Artist*, sometime in the late 18th century, using oil on canvas. While seemingly conventional for the time, there's more here than meets the eye. Robert’s loose brushwork is key to the painting's atmosphere, lending it a sense of immediacy. The waterfall, rocks, and trees are rendered with quick, gestural strokes, while the figures are smaller and more detailed. This contrast in scale and style draws our attention to the act of drawing itself, a craft that mirrors Robert's own. Paintings like this were produced in studios, for sale on an open market. Though the scene is one of leisure, it is also implicitly about labor: the artist's labor, and by extension the labor of all those involved in the cycle of material production and consumption. So, next time you see a landscape painting, remember that it's not just about pretty scenery, but about the social and economic context in which it was made.