Waldausgang mit Blick auf Kornfelder und ein Dörfchen 

Karl Franz Kraul made this watercolor and gouache work, "Waldausgang mit Blick auf Kornfelder und ein Dörfchen," in Germany during the late 18th century. Kraul's landscape evokes the Enlightenment-era interest in nature, but it also speaks to the changing social and economic conditions of the time. The figures appear to be a well-to-do man and a young boy walking towards a village, perhaps representing a shift from rural to more populated, agricultural areas. The ordered fields and distant village suggest a society increasingly shaped by human intervention and agriculture, reflecting a growing population. The forest itself may symbolize the fading away of wilderness, transformed by burgeoning industrialization and urbanization. Works like this were often commissioned by members of the upper classes who sought to celebrate their dominion over an increasingly tamed landscape. Studying land records, economic treatises, and travel accounts from the period would give us further insight into the social values that are embedded in this landscape.