Landscape as an independent genre flourished in the first half of the seventeenth century when artists from all over Europe—but especially France, the Netherlands, and the duchy of Lorraine—came to work in Rome, taking antiquity and nature as their twin sources of inspiration. The concept of the classical landscape as a constructed, idealized view of the natural world became well established during this period and found near perfect expression in the work of Nicolas Poussin and his contemporaries.
Complementing the exhibition Poussin and Nature, this installation is selected almost entirely from the Museum's holdings. It features landscapes in drawing and print created by artists in the international milieu of seventeenth-century Rome as well by those who, although separated by distance or time, felt the ripple of this influence.