Landscape c. 1835 - 1840

Seth Wells Cheney produced this landscape drawing in pencil on paper sometime in the first half of the 19th century. As an artist working in the United States, Cheney would have been aware of the cultural significance of landscape imagery. Thinkers like Emerson and Thoreau valorized the American landscape as a place of spiritual renewal, counterbalancing the effects of industrialization. Cheney's sketch, in its deliberate simplicity, seems to participate in this wider cultural trend. The lack of overt symbolism or narrative elements suggests an interest in the land itself. The pencil medium and the work's relatively small scale might indicate this was a preparatory sketch, either for a larger painting or for a print. Art historians might consult period publications and artists' journals to contextualize Cheney's artistic practice within the broader artistic and intellectual currents of his time. The meaning of art is contingent on its social and institutional context, and we can come to understand art better by understanding the context that it was made in.