2-728-463 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Farmhouse on the Slope of a Hill, c. 1508. In 1957 a group of 41 sheets depicting landscapes by Fra Bartolommeo, one of the most influential artists of the Italian Renaissance, appeared on the art market. The discovery was significant. They are among the first works of Western art dedicated completely to nature-landscapes for their own sake, without suggestion of biblical or historical narrative. The rapidity and regularity of strokes used for the evergreen and deciduous trees and the sweeping lines in the foreground suggest that the landscape in Farmhouse on the Slope of a Hill was done directly from nature.