Bjerglandskab med folk og æsler på en vej 1780 - 1802

Jens Juel rendered this landscape with pen and brown ink. It depicts a mountainous scene populated by figures and donkeys on a path. Juel lived during an era of significant social change, including burgeoning ideas about human rights. During this time, the relationship between humans and nature was shifting. The Romantics were beginning to find sublime beauty in nature, while others sought to dominate it through agriculture and industry. Here, the figures seem small, almost inconsequential, against the scale of the landscape, yet the scene is not wild, but pastoral. What stories do these figures carry? The path they travel is also our own. Perhaps this work is a contemplation on the relationship between humanity and the world around us. The figures, like us, are travelers within a landscape, their identities shaped by both place and time.