Farmhouse on the Slope of a Hill

Artists in Florence also explored landscape beginning around 1500, producing some of the first examples of pure landscape drawing, depictions of nature for its own sake. A Florentine painter and member of the Dominican order (an order of mendicant, or begging, monks), Fra (brother) Bartolommeo most often depicted humble scenes emphasizing human activity, labor, and the ambience created by people and nature in harmony. The rapidity and regularity of the

strokes used for the trees and the sweeping lines in the foreground suggest that the artist drew this view directly from nature.

Credit: Gift of the Hanna Fund, Purchase, Dudley P. Allen Fund, Delia E. Holden Fund and L. E. Holden Fund