Boom in landschap 1809

Siméon Joseph Petit created this landscape drawing with pen and brush in the late 18th or early 19th century, but without a date, we can only speculate about its specific social context. We see a tree dominating the foreground, while in the background there is a suggestion of cultivated land and a distant tower. Was Petit interested in contrasting nature and culture? He lived through the French Revolution, an era of intense social and political upheaval that changed the way artists thought about nature. The emphasis on freedom and equality also extended to the way people thought about landscape. To understand this drawing better, one could explore the artistic conventions of landscape in the late 18th century, look at what texts Petit would have been reading, and what art institutions and social circles he might have been a part of.