Getty Presents A Brush with Nature: Romantic Landscape Drawings

The J. Paul Getty Museum presents A Brush with Nature: Romantic Landscape Drawings, an exhibition of more than 30 works from the Getty Museum’s collection by significant British, French, and German artists from the Romantic period.

On view at the Getty Center from February 18 through May 25, 2025, the exhibition highlights how 18th- and 19th-century artists reconsidered their relationship to the landscape through important Romantic motifs such as the sublime power of natural forces and the melancholy appeal of ruins.

“Featuring extraordinary works by Romantic artists like Caspar David Friedrich, J.M.W. Turner, and Théodore Géricault, this exhibition offers visitors a deeper insight into the world of Romanticism and the diverse techniques employed by artists of this period,” says Danielle Canter, assistant curator of drawings at the Getty Museum. “Just as it did for Romantic artists, nature continues to influence audiences today, for its profound beauty and fragility.”

Romanticism was a wide-ranging artistic movement characterized by an interest in exploration of the natural world. Spanning the late 18th-century and the first half of the 19th, the movement represented a transitional moment in European landscape tradition, as artists abandoned idealized depictions of nature in favor of a more personal relationship with the environment.

More than ever before, Romantic artists worked en plein air—directly in the landscape—seeking to better understand nature through close observation. One example on display is Alfred William Hunt’s Mount Snowdon through Clearing Clouds, which captures the astonishing effects of light and color caused by dissolving mist surrounding the mountain. Hunt’s loose handling of the atmospheric haze he observed in Wales is starkly contrasted by his detailed rendering of plants and stones in the foreground.

Many landscape artists also found inspiration in architectural ruins. These abandoned structures illustrate the persistence of nature and the passage of time, evoking feelings of melancholy and spiritual contemplation. Hubert Robert was well known for featuring ancient ruins in his scenic views of real or imagined vistas. In his large fantasy watercolor Landscape with Ruins, Robert depicted the crumbling remains of an ancient Roman temple. The imposing structure is as much part of the landscape as the gnarled tree in the foreground, reaching up to the sky with its crooked branches.

The concept of the sublime was another theme at the forefront of Romanticism. Artists sought to capture the sensation of awe experienced when confronting the boundlessness of nature or the immeasurable power of natural forces. J.M.W. Turner’s dramatic drawing Longships Lighthouse, Land’s End portrays crashing waves breaking a ship to pieces in a storm out at sea. Turner used a wide array of watercolor techniques, from layering washes to blotting and scratching the media, to convey the violent strength of the tempest.

“With their dynamic compositions, vibrant colors, and dramatic use of scale, these landscape drawings offer a striking view of how Romantic artists engaged with their environment,” says Canter. “We hope our visitors will be inspired to reflect on their personal relationship with nature following their visit.”

A Brush with Nature: Romantic Landscape Drawings is curated by Danielle Canter, assistant curator of drawings at the Getty Museum.