A general understanding of naturalism as the representation of nature in art was closely associated in the early modern period with theories of the imitation of nature (Latin imitatio naturae; cf. Mimesis). Yet the fact that nature was studied is not evidence in itself of naturalism (cf. Nature study [art]). Study in nature (as opposed to working in the studio) was a possible positive connotation of naturalism, but the term could equally be negative in t…