The Rock of Moses 

David Roberts made this watercolor painting, "The Rock of Moses," sometime in the 19th century, during the height of British Orientalism. Roberts traveled extensively through the Middle East, documenting landscapes and architecture with a meticulous eye for detail. Paintings like this catered to a European fascination with the "Orient," but it's worth asking what cultural work they performed. Here, the sublime natural landscape dwarfs the human figures, who are depicted in stereotypical "native" garb. Was Roberts seeking to document or perhaps exoticize? This image creates meaning through its careful composition and deployment of Orientalist tropes. To understand the painting more fully, we might consult travel literature, colonial archives, and studies of Orientalism. Art doesn't exist in a vacuum but is always shaped by the social, political, and cultural forces of its time. As historians, we seek to uncover these layers of meaning and understand art's complex relationship to power.