Following the Seven Years’ War, Switzerland was perceived by its contemporaries as the most beautiful landscape in Europe alongside Italy. The significance that Helvetian graphics contributed to this image has remained largely disregarded until now. They were the disseminators and agents of a new enthusiasm for Switzerland. Travelers, such as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, valued the direct recording of nature in these works on paper, whose coloring with watercolors were regarded as a novelty on the European graphics market. The art and cultural historical importance of these works are reconsidered in an international context, as are the social historical integration of draftsmen, painters and colorists. The development of this genre belongs to the history leading up to the world’s oldest preserved landscape panorama, in Thun. The catalogue section delves into six artists, using their works as examples, many of which are published here for the first time.
