Overgrown rock section 

Curator: This pen and ink drawing before us is titled “Overgrown rock section," attributed to Franz Kobell. Editor: There’s something elemental about it, a kind of untamed chaos. The rocks almost seem to writhe beneath the dense foliage. Curator: Landscape sketches like these were often studies, precursors to larger, more formal works, capturing immediate impressions of a scene. Kobell was German, and these exercises reflect a period where the artist started drawing “en plein air”. Editor: Knowing that shifts my perspective. It moves from chaos to a careful recording of observation, yet, to a degree, a reclaiming of ownership of public spaces, as, back then, landscapes were depicted mostly for wealthy patrons, as backdrop of their properties, but now the nature has more agency. Curator: Indeed, one could argue that his choice of overgrown subjects disrupts the usual formal control associated with depictions of cultivated landscapes commissioned at the time by the nobility, who controlled the view and use of land. Kobell seems to suggest, the land always reclaims itself. Editor: There is definitely a tension between detail and quick notation. What reads like scribble up close resolves itself into foliage, a kind of restless energy rendered through the ink. It shows the intersectional tensions between the natural environment's power and humanity’s impact in it. Curator: It reminds me of contemporaneous thinkers, particularly Goethe, who focused on the organic process of growth and transformation. Kobell similarly captures a moment in this eternal cycle. This is further evidenced in his use of ink and pen, enabling detailed mark making in such landscape art during the period. Editor: Seeing how those social contexts inform the art sharpens my eye. The ink allows for nuance within something ostensibly black and white, a bit like our interpretations. Curator: Absolutely. There is more beyond initial perspectives of landscape art. Editor: A fitting conclusion to observing an artist using pen to explore that constant negotiation of space.