Wooded Landscape with a Creek 1770 - 1806

Editor: We’re looking at Christoph Nathe’s "Wooded Landscape with a Creek," probably made somewhere between 1770 and 1806, at least according to the Met. It’s a wash drawing, pretty monochromatic. The light's concentrated right down the middle of the composition, around this creek disappearing into the distance. It gives off this sort of romantic, maybe even slightly melancholic, vibe. What's your take on it? Curator: Oh, absolutely! Melancholy clings to it like moss on those imagined stones, doesn't it? It’s a fabricated stage – think Claude Lorrain’s idealized visions, but stripped bare, left humming with an internalized drama. See how the artist teases that opening at the end of the stream? Like a promise, or an escape hatch from… where, exactly? Editor: Somewhere less…gray, maybe? Do you think this is a real place, or imagined? Curator: Probably invented! It echoes a feeling more than a locale, right? A constructed mood. Those blasted heaths, haunted groves, were popular spots to stroll…in your head, back then. I mean, could you imagine bumping into somebody, while reflecting on all the things that were bad about your existence. Ruined! Editor: Haha! Very true. I guess I just kept picturing myself *in* it, and the gray sort of pulled me in. I hadn't really thought of it as…performative, almost? Curator: That’s exactly the thing! That imagined solitude – all set up just so for you. Perhaps those imagined escapes were far more real than reality itself! Thanks to Herr Nathe, it is possible to see differently, isn’t it? Editor: Absolutely. It feels more like an emotional landscape than a physical one, which is definitely not where my mind went at first glance.