Landscape with Draughtsmen

This drawing has long puzzled experts. One unusual feature is the variety of media employed by the artist: the use of chalk or graphite to first lay out the composition, and the later application of pen and brown ink, indicate that the artist may have copied a preexisting image. Another unusual element is the two figures in the left-hand foreground. Rather than an integral part of the composition, they appear to have been added on top of the already-executed landscape.

Who are these figures and why were they added to the scene? The one on the left holds a palette, suggesting that they are artists who have gone out into the countryside to document this bucolic vista, in which a lone figure labors in the distance.

The practice of painting outdoors (en plein air) was more common in the late 1800s among Impressionist artists than it was in the 1600s. The inclusion of these figures—either by the original artist or by a later one—hints at a discomfort with an independent landscape lacking any human narrative. It also reveals a desire to center the role of humans as actors in—and interpreters of—the natural world.