'Le grand théàtre des alpes et glaciers' 1787

Charles Melchior Descourtis made ‘Le grand théàtre des alpes et glaciers’ as a color etching, a print meant to evoke the sublime grandeur of the Swiss Alps. This artwork captures a pivotal moment in the cultural history of landscape. Made in the late 18th or early 19th century, the image reflects the growing interest in the natural world, fueled by Romanticism and the rise of tourism. Note how Descourtis frames the Alps as a 'theatre,' suggesting that nature itself is a spectacle for human appreciation and consumption. The sublime beauty of the glaciers, waterfalls, and towering peaks speaks to an emerging aesthetic sensibility. It is an aesthetic tied to social changes, as new audiences began to seek out and interpret landscape as a source of pleasure and spiritual renewal. To fully understand this artwork, we can turn to travel literature, scientific studies of the period, and the records of early mountaineering clubs to trace the evolving relationship between humans and the natural world.