Landscape Painting
Asian Landscape Painting
•According to Stokstad, Asian's landscape paintings were based on freedom,
peace, and simplicity—one the desire to become one with nature. Landscape
paintings are imbued with philosophical and moral and symbolic
connotations.
•According to Charles Moffat from his article Chinese Landscape Painting,
many critics consider landscape to be the highest form of Chinese painting.
The time from the Five Dynasties period to the Northern Song period (9071127) is known as the "Great Age of Chinese Landscape.”
• In the north, artists such as Jing Hao, Fan Kuan, and Guo Xi painted
pictures of towering mountains, using strong black lines, ink wash,
and sharp, dotted brush strokes to suggest rough stone.
In the south, Dong Yuan, Ju Ran, and other artists painted the rolling hills and
rivers of their native countryside in peaceful scenes done with softer,
rubbed brushwork.
These two kinds of scenes and techniques became the classical
styles of Chinese landscape painting.
•Japanese landscape was inspired by Chinese depictions: landscape is
referred to as 'Sansui' in Japan. San means 'mountain' and Sui means 'water'
and therefore a majority of Japanese landscape paintings depict mountains
and flowing water. Occasionally, sun or moon is also included to represent
the 'natural truths' underlying each scenery.
Travelers among Mountains and Streams
Fan Kuan
Northern Song Dynasty, early 11th century CE
hanging scroll, ink and colors on silk
Zhao Mengfu
section of Autumn Colors on the Qiao and Hua Mountains
Yuan dynasty, 1296
handscroll, ink and color on paper
Poet on a Mountaintop
Shen Zhou
Ming dynasty, c.1500
leaf from an album
A Thousand Peaks and Myriad Ravines
Wang Hui
Qing dynasty, 1693
hanging scroll, ink on paper
Landscape Shitao
Qing dynasty c. 1700
leaf from an album of
landscapes
ink and color on paper
Early Renassiance
Panoramic Perspective in a Landscape
•No such comprehensive panorama of the natural world and
its human inhabitants is know to us from the entire previous
history of art.
•No single point of view (he is a medieval painter)—the artist
instead wants to show the viewer as much as he possibly
can of the landscape.
•To understand this view, what is necessary?
detail: Effects of Good Government in the Countryside
Ambrogio Lorenzetti
Allegory of the Good Government
1338-40
fresco Palazzo Pubblico, Siena
Ambrogio Lorenzetti
detail: Effects of Good Government in the Countryside
Ambrogio Lorenzetti
detail: Effects of Good
Government in the Countryside
Northern Renaissance
•Perhaps the most innovative feature of Northern
Renaissance landscape painting in the 1400s and
1500s was the conception of landscape as a vast
terrain with deeply receding space. Artists began to
depict the distant horizon and capture the palpable
atmosphere that lies between the viewer and the far
distance.
•A major new feature in landscape painting of the
1500s was the bird's-eye view, a vantage point for
showing the earth from the clouds.
•The study of perspective gave rise to a careful
rendering of scenery according to conventional
formulas.
Pieter Bruegel the Elder Gloomy Day (February) 1565
Pieter Bruegel the Elder Magpie on the Gallow 1568
Pieter Bruegel the Elder Winter Landscape with Skaters and a Birdtrap 1565
Barbizon School of French landscape
painting
• The group of men was led by Theodore Rousseau, as
well other artists such as Jean-Francois Millet and
Camille Corot.
• They rejected the classical landscape style and insisted
upon direct study from nature.
• The school rejected the Academic tradition and theory in
hopes of making a more accurate representation of the
countryside.
• They were devoted to depicting the working class in their
paintings, showing the lives of farmers, gravediggers,
woodsmen, poachers, and other workers.
Jean-François Millet Haystacks: Autumn c. 1874
Théodore Rousseau Landscape with a Plowman 1860-62
John Constable
The Lock
1824
Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot
Ville d'Avray
1867
Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot
The Bridge at Mantes
1868-70
Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot
Mill at Saint-Nicolas-les-Arras 1874
Romanticism
Romantic landscape painting is
dramatic
• the content emphasizes turbulent
or fantastic natural scenery
• disasters
• the sublime (something that
inspires awe)
naturalistic
• the content represents tranquil
nature
• the content signals a religious
reverence toward nature
Romantic painting is characterized
by
• fluid, loose brushwork
• strong colors
• complex compositions
• powerful contrasts of light and dark
• expressive poses and gestures
Caspar David Friedrich
Monk by the Sea 1809
oil on canvas
connect to Fan Kuan’s Travelers Among Mountains and Streams 11th century
Joseph Mallord William Turner
Snow Storm: Hannibal and his Army Crossing the Alps
1812 oil on canvas
Naturalism
• Naturalism is a style that records the visible world as
accurately as possible.
• Naturalism is characterized by close attention to detail
and a precise depiction of nature that is reached by
sketching on the site.
• Look for closely observed images of tranquil nature.
• Naturalist artists want to evoke feelings of nationalistic
pride and they want to record the beauty of nature and
its wilderness.
• Contain spiritual, moral ,historical, and philosophical
issues.
• Naturalists like Bierstadt record Native American life.
Naturalism
• Naturalism in landscape paintings became popular in the
late eighteenth/early nineteenth century in the United
States.
• Expressed the idea of Manifest Destiny and westward
expansion.
• Artist were interested in recording exactly what they saw.
• Naturalism in the United States focused on what made
America unique geographically and on its civilization
growth.
• Some paintings served as an escape from the reality that
isn’t shown in the painting (that’s why it’s important to
consider what’s happening historically at the time).
Thomas Cole The Oxbow (The Connecticut River near Northampton) 1836
Ask yourself this question: at this moment in the United States, is “wilderness”
considered a positive or negative space?
Frederic Edwin Church
Twilight in the Wilderness 1860
Frederic Edwin Church
Niagara Falls 1857
Albert Bierstadt
Among the Sierra Nevada Mountains, California
1868
Impressionist Landscapes
• The impressionist style of painting is characterized chiefly by
concentration on the general impression produced by a scene or
object and the use of unmixed primary colors and small strokes to
simulate actual reflected light.
• Impressionism emphasized the conveyance of an overall impression
of a particular scene, usually outdoors, using primary colors and
short brushstrokes to represent the appearance of reflected light.
The desired result of impressionism was to capture the artist's
perception of the subject rather than the subject itself. Artists of this
movement desired to portray images as though someone might see
something if they just caught a glimpse of it.
Claude Monet Houses of Parliament 1900
Claude Monet Houses of Parliament 1900
Claude Monet Impression: Sunrise 1873
Claude Monet The Magpie 1869
Claude Monet
Wheatstacks
1891
Claude Monet
Wheatstacks, Snow Effect, Morning
1891
Camille Pissaro
Road of Louveciennes
1872
Gustave Caillebotte
The Garden at Petit
Gennevilliers in Winter
1894
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
Banks of the Seine at Asnieres
1879
Post-Impressionist Landscapes
Paul Cezanne
•Cezanne depicted Mont Sainte-Victoire about thirty times before
his death. He used this mountain near his home in Aix as the
occasion for exploring his ideas about representation.
•Unlike the Impressionists, Cezanne’s primary focus is not depicting
a particular moment of light; instead he is creating an image that
has a durable timelessness to it. Notice the broken brushwork; he
seems to create the image through deliberate hatchings that
simultaneously create both depth and surface design. There is a
definitive foreground, middle-ground and background, yet at the
same time the entire surface of the painting flattens so that the
viewer traces the blocks of color that pattern the surface.
Paul Cezanne
The Bridge at Maincy
1879
Paul Cezanne
Mont Sainte-Victoire
1885-1887
Andre Derain
Mountains at Collioure
1905
Gustave Klimt
Apple Tree
1912
Vasily Kandinsky Landscape with Factory Chimney 1910
Vasily Kandinsky
Composition VII
1913
Helen Frankenthaler
Mountains and Sea
1952
Helen Frankenthaler
Viewpoint II
1979
Mark Rothko
Orange and Yellow
1956
Anselm Kiefer
The March Heath
1974
Anselm Kiefer
Nuremberg
1982
Anselm Kiefer
Nigredo
1984
Minor White
Capitol Reef, Utah
1962
Edward Weston
Nude
1925