Mountain Landscape, Laengenfeld, Austria 1871 - 1872

Editor: Here we have John Singer Sargent's "Mountain Landscape, Laengenfeld, Austria." It's a modest graphite drawing, but that mountain dominates the composition. What do you see in this piece? Curator: I see a depiction of man versus nature. The lone figure, dwarfed by the imposing mountain, could symbolize the industrial worker challenging the natural landscape. Is he taming it, or being consumed by it? What does it mean to draw a mountain, to reduce its scale in that way? Editor: So it's not just a pretty landscape, it's about power? Curator: Exactly. The landscape genre itself can be interpreted as a form of claiming territory, of visualizing ownership. Who has access to this landscape? How do we represent nature, and what does that representation tell us about our relationship to it? Editor: I'll never look at a landscape the same way again. Thanks! Curator: My pleasure. Keep questioning what you see!