At the close of the 18th century, a new attitude toward nature developed in Germany. Artists and writers such as Schiller, Goethe, Novalis and Kleist espoused a union of nature and emotion that is known as romanticism. Drawing en plein air appealed especially to the Germans, and the bravura landscape drawing became a major theme of the time.

Artists inspired by romanticism created a huge number of drawings, with a level of draftsmanship that is hard to fathom by contemporary standards. This exhibition explores the depiction of the natural world as a place of wild, primeval power and sublime beauty by a group of artists who shared the romantic spirit of creative unrest and heroic vision. Landscape drawings by Arnold Böchlin, Caspar David Friedrich, Joseph Anton Koch, Wilhelm von Kobell, Ferdinand Kobell, Johann von Dillis, among others, are included in the exhibition.

This is the third exhibition at Nolan/Eckman to explore drawings of the time of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, whose influence spanned the years 1749 to 1832.