Visser bij een waterval, een huis in de achtergrond 1862

Andreas Achenbach created this print of a fisherman by a waterfall, with a house in the background. The image evokes the Romantic tradition, which was in full flower in Germany when Achenbach was making his name in the middle of the 19th century. We can interpret the image as one that connects the viewer to the natural world as it appeared before the industrial revolution, when cities began to grow exponentially and reshape social life. The waterfall and the figure of the fisherman are picturesque. As a genre, the picturesque became popular at the end of the 18th century, and it was institutionalized in the art academy. Achenbach was trained at the Dusseldorf Academy, and there is perhaps a sense that this is the kind of image that was intended for bourgeois consumption, a memento of a simpler past. By consulting catalogs and social histories we can understand more about how these images were used to promote notions of national and cultural identity.