Rocky Cliff
18th–19th century
Medium
Graphite and brown wash
Dimensions
sheet: 12 7/8 x 11 1/8 in. (32.7 x 28.3 cm)
Classification
Drawings
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Gift of Bruce and Angelika Livie, 2005
Accession Number
2005.181
Tags
Art Historical Context
Johann Christian Reinhart’s *Rocky Cliff* offers a striking glimpse into the natural world through the intimate medium of drawing. Executed in graphite and brown wash on a sheet measuring roughly 13 by 11 inches, the work depicts a rugged, towering cliff face. Created between the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, it reflects the era’s growing fascination with landscape as a subject worthy of serious artistic attention. Reinhart employs graphite for crisp, precise outlines that capture the jagged rock formations, while the brown wash introduces subtle tonal gradations that sugges...
About the Artist
Johann Christian Reinhart · 1761–1847
Johann Christian Reinhart (1761–1847) was a German painter and engraver who became one of the founding figures of German Romantic classical landscape painting, spending nearly six decades in Rome and transforming his adopted city into an inexhaustible subject. Born in Hof, Bavaria, on 24 January 1761, Reinhart initially followed his father into theological study before his passion for drawing took...