Untitled (Moonlight on the Lake)

Unknown Artist

Oil on canvas

16.75 x 25.75 in.

Mori and Jacobson Collection

CollectionThis mysterious and evocative painting of the night reflects the taste for a Romantic interpretation of the landscape. In the 19th century, many artists began to see the landscape, formerly regarded as a lowly theme unworthy of the grand tradition in painting, as a vehicle for carrying human yearnings and philosophies. Of course, they focused on the realistic appearance of nature, but they also infused their pictures with suggestions of something beyond mere looks. Romantic artists, for whom emotions, imagination, and wonder were important experiences to probe and translate, saw in landscapes a kind of “book” from which humans could better understand not only the outward forms of nature, but also its unseen forces as well as their own human nature and its relationship to the world beyond. Reverence for nature could even be an aspect of religion. The little village sleeping in the shadow of these grand mountains and moon-reflective lake is both sheltered and dominated by the silence and scale of its awesome surroundings.

We have no information about the exact location depicted here (nor do we know the name of the artist), but these nocturnal images were especially popular in Germany and the United States in the 1800s. In addition, many artists were drawn to the lakes and mountains of northern Italy, such as the area around Lake Como.