Landscape with River and Mill

Discussion

FROM THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO’S CATALOG

One of only a few examples to survive from the earlier decades of the 16th century, this drawing demonstrates the emerging interest in landscape as a subject independent of narrative or devotional scenes. Although the compositional elements described here seem like those one could observe—a town set in a dell—the manner of their description is stylized, indicating that the scene may have actually come from the artist’s imagination.

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