Gebirgslandschaft, auf dem Weg ein Mädchen zu Pferde, links zwei Kühe 1784

Francis Wheatley created this watercolor landscape, titled "Gebirgslandschaft," in the late 18th century. Wheatley lived during a time of significant social and economic change in England, as well as shifting ideas about class. Wheatley's work often romanticized rural life, showing idealized scenes that appealed to the tastes of the upper and middle classes. In this piece, the figures of a girl on horseback, a man with a donkey, and two cows, are central to this idyll. While Wheatley's landscapes celebrate a certain vision of pastoral life, we might also consider what is left out of the frame. What labor makes this scene possible, and who benefits from its beauty? The misty, dreamlike quality of the landscape and the small scale of the figures almost asks us to consider the relationship between our own lives and the natural world.