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Landscape painting, also known as landscape art, is the depiction of natural scenery such as
mountains A mountain is an elevated portion of the Earth's crust, generally with steep sides that show significant exposed bedrock. Although definitions vary, a mountain may differ from a plateau in having a limited summit area, and is usually higher th ...
,
valleys A valley is an elongated low area often running between hills or mountains, which will typically contain a river or stream running from one end to the other. Most valleys are formed by erosion of the land surface by rivers or streams over ...
,
trees In botany, a tree is a perennial plant with an elongated stem, or trunk, usually supporting branches and leaves. In some usages, the definition of a tree may be narrower, including only woody plants with secondary growth, plants that are u ...
,
river A river is a natural flowing watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, sea, lake or another river. In some cases, a river flows into the ground and becomes dry at the end of its course without reaching another body of wate ...
s, and
forests A forest is an area of land dominated by trees. Hundreds of definitions of forest are used throughout the world, incorporating factors such as tree density, tree height, land use, legal standing, and ecological function. The United Nations' ...
, especially where the main subject is a wide view—with its elements arranged into a coherent composition. In other works, landscape backgrounds for figures can still form an important part of the work. Sky is almost always included in the view, and
weather Weather is the state of the atmosphere, describing for example the degree to which it is hot or cold, wet or dry, calm or stormy, clear or cloudy. On Earth, most weather phenomena occur in the lowest layer of the planet's atmosphere, the ...
is often an element of the composition. Detailed landscapes as a distinct subject are not found in all artistic traditions, and develop when there is already a sophisticated tradition of representing other subjects. Two main traditions spring from
Western painting The history of Western painting represents a continuous, though disrupted, tradition from antiquity until the present time. Until the mid-19th century it was primarily concerned with representational and Classical modes of production, after ...
and
Chinese art Chinese art is visual art that originated in or is practiced in China, Greater China or by Chinese artists. Art created by Chinese residing outside of China can also be considered a part of Chinese art when it is based in or draws on Chinese ...
, going back well over a thousand years in both cases. The recognition of a spiritual element in landscape art is present from its beginnings in East Asian art, drawing on
Daoism Taoism (, ) or Daoism () refers to either a school of philosophical thought (道家; ''daojia'') or to a religion (道教; ''daojiao''), both of which share ideas and concepts of Chinese origin and emphasize living in harmony with the ''Tao'' ...
and other philosophical traditions, but in the West only becomes explicit with
Romanticism Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic, literary, musical, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century, and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate ...
. Landscape views in art may be entirely imaginary, or copied from reality with varying degrees of accuracy. If the primary purpose of a picture is to depict an actual, specific place, especially including buildings prominently, it is called a ''topographical view''. Such views, extremely common as prints in the West, are often seen as inferior to
fine art In European academic traditions, fine art is developed primarily for aesthetics or creative expression, distinguishing it from decorative art or applied art, which also has to serve some practical function, such as pottery or most metalwork ...
landscapes, although the distinction is not always meaningful; similar prejudices existed in Chinese art, where literati painting usually depicted imaginary views, while professional artists painted real views. The word "landscape" entered the modern
English language English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the is ...
as ''landskip'' (variously spelt), an anglicization of the
Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...
''landschap'', around the start of the 17th century, purely as a term for works of art, with its first use as a word for a
painting Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ...
in 1598. Within a few decades it was used to describe vistas in poetry, and eventually as a term for real views. However the cognate term ''landscaef'' or ''landskipe'' for a cleared patch of land had existed in
Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...
, though it is not recorded from
Middle English Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English p ...
.


History

The earliest forms of art around the world depict little that could really be called landscape, although ground-lines and sometimes indications of mountains, trees or other natural features are included. The earliest "pure landscapes" with no human figures are
fresco Fresco (plural ''frescos'' or ''frescoes'') is a technique of mural painting executed upon freshly laid ("wet") lime plaster. Water is used as the vehicle for the dry-powder pigment to merge with the plaster, and with the setting of the plaste ...
s from
Minoan art Minoan art is the art produced by the Bronze Age Aegean Minoan civilization from about 3000 to 1100 BC, though the most extensive and finest survivals come from approximately 2300 to 1400 BC. It forms part of the wider grouping of Aegean art ...
of around 1500 BCE. Hunting scenes, especially those set in the enclosed vista of the reed beds of the
Nile Delta The Nile Delta ( ar, دلتا النيل, or simply , is the delta formed in Lower Egypt where the Nile River spreads out and drains into the Mediterranean Sea. It is one of the world's largest river deltas—from Alexandria in the west to Po ...
from Ancient Egypt, can give a strong sense of place, but the emphasis is on individual plant forms and human and animal figures rather than the overall landscape setting. The
fresco Fresco (plural ''frescos'' or ''frescoes'') is a technique of mural painting executed upon freshly laid ("wet") lime plaster. Water is used as the vehicle for the dry-powder pigment to merge with the plaster, and with the setting of the plaste ...
s from the
Tomb of Nebamun The lost Tomb of Nebamun was an ancient Egyptian tomb from the Eighteenth Dynasty located in the Theban Necropolis located on the west bank of the Nile at Thebes (present-day Luxor) in Egypt. The tomb was the source of a number of famous decora ...
, now in the
British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...
(c. 1350 BC), are a famous example. For a coherent depiction of a whole landscape, some rough system of perspective, or scaling for distance, is needed, and this seems from literary evidence to have first been developed in
Ancient Greece Ancient Greece ( el, Ἑλλάς, Hellás) was a northeastern Mediterranean civilization, existing from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of classical antiquity ( AD 600), that comprised a loose collection of cult ...
in the
Hellenistic In Classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Mediterranean history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the emergence of the Roman Empire, as signified by the Battle of Actium in ...
period, although no large-scale examples survive. More
ancient Roman In modern historiography, ancient Rome refers to Roman civilisation from the founding of the city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. It encompasses the Roman Kingdom (753–509 BC ...
landscapes survive, from the 1st century BCE onwards, especially frescos of landscapes decorating rooms that have been preserved at archaeological sites of
Pompeii Pompeii (, ) was an ancient city located in what is now the ''comune'' of Pompei near Naples in the Campania region of Italy. Pompeii, along with Herculaneum and many villas in the surrounding area (e.g. at Boscoreale, Stabiae), was buried ...
,
Herculaneum Herculaneum (; Neapolitan and it, Ercolano) was an ancient town, located in the modern-day ''comune'' of Ercolano, Campania, Italy. Herculaneum was buried under volcanic ash and pumice in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79. Like the nea ...
and elsewhere, and
mosaic A mosaic is a pattern or image made of small regular or irregular pieces of colored stone, glass or ceramic, held in place by plaster/mortar, and covering a surface. Mosaics are often used as floor and wall decoration, and were particularly pop ...
s. The Chinese ink painting tradition of
shan shui ''Shan shui'' (; pronounced ) refers to a style of traditional Chinese painting that involves or depicts scenery or natural landscapes, using a brush and ink rather than more conventional paints. Mountains, rivers and waterfalls are common s ...
("mountain-water"), or "pure" landscape, in which the only sign of human life is usually a sage, or a glimpse of his hut, uses sophisticated landscape backgrounds to figure subjects, and landscape art of this period retains a classic and much-imitated status within the Chinese tradition. Both the Roman and Chinese traditions typically show grand panoramas of imaginary landscapes, generally backed with a range of spectacular mountains – in China often with waterfalls and in Rome often including sea, lakes or rivers. These were frequently used, as in the example illustrated, to bridge the gap between a foreground scene with figures and a distant panoramic vista, a persistent problem for landscape artists. The Chinese style generally showed only a distant view, or used dead ground or mist to avoid that difficulty. A major contrast between landscape painting in the West and East Asia has been that while in the West until the 19th century it occupied a low position in the accepted
hierarchy of genres A hierarchy of genres is any formalization which ranks different genres in an art form in terms of their prestige and cultural value. In literature, the epic was considered the highest form, for the reason expressed by Samuel Johns ...
, in East Asia the classic Chinese mountain-water ink painting was traditionally the most prestigious form of visual art. Aesthetic theories in both regions gave the highest status to the works seen to require the most imagination from the artist. In the West this was
history painting History painting is a genre in painting defined by its subject matter rather than any artistic style or specific period. History paintings depict a moment in a narrative story, most often (but not exclusively) Greek and Roman mythology and Bible ...
, but in East Asia it was the imaginary landscape, where famous practitioners were, at least in theory, amateur literati, including several Emperors of both China and Japan. They were often also poets whose lines and images illustrated each other. However, in the West, history painting came to require an extensive landscape background where appropriate, so the theory did not entirely work against the development of landscape painting – for several centuries landscapes were regularly promoted to the status of history painting by the addition of small figures to make a narrative scene, typically religious or mythological.


Western tradition


Medieval

In early Western
medieval art The medieval art of the Western world covers a vast scope of time and place, over 1000 years of art in Europe, and at certain periods in Western Asia and Northern Africa. It includes major art movements and periods, national and regional art, gen ...
interest in landscape disappears almost entirely, kept alive only in copies of
Late Antique Late antiquity is the time of transition from classical antiquity to the Middle Ages, generally spanning the 3rd–7th century in Europe and adjacent areas bordering the Mediterranean Basin. The popularization of this periodization in English has ...
works such as the
Utrecht Psalter The Utrecht Psalter (Utrecht, Universiteitsbibliotheek, MS Bibl. Rhenotraiectinae I Nr 32.) is a ninth-century illuminated manuscript, illuminated psalter which is a key masterpiece of Carolingian art; it is probably the most valuable manuscript ...
; the last reworking of this source, in an early Gothic version, reduces the previously extensive landscapes to a few trees filling gaps in the composition, with no sense of overall space. A revival in interest in nature initially mainly manifested itself in depictions of small gardens such as the
Hortus Conclusus ''Hortus conclusus'' is a Latin term, meaning literally "enclosed garden". At their root, both of the words in ''hortus conclusus'' refer linguistically to enclosure. It describes a genre of garden that was enclosed as a practical concern, a majo ...
or those in
millefleur Millefleur, millefleurs or mille-fleur ( French mille-fleurs, literally "thousand flowers") refers to a background style of many different small flowers and plants, usually shown on a green ground, as though growing in grass. It is essentially re ...
tapestries. The frescos of figures at work or play in front of a background of dense trees in the Palace of the Popes, Avignon are probably a unique survival of what was a common subject. Several frescos of gardens have survived from Roman houses like the
Villa of Livia The Villa of Livia ( la, Ad Gallinas Albas) is an ancient Roman villa at Prima Porta, north of Rome, Italy, along the Via Flaminia. It may have been part of Livia Drusilla's dowry that she brought when she married Octavian (later called the emper ...
. During the 14th century
Giotto di Bondone Giotto di Bondone (; – January 8, 1337), known mononymously as Giotto ( , ) and Latinised as Giottus, was an Italian painter and architect from Florence during the Late Middle Ages. He worked during the Gothic/Proto-Renaissance period. Gi ...
and his followers began to acknowledge nature in their work, increasingly introducing elements of the landscape as the background setting for the action of the figures in their paintings. Early in the 15th century, landscape painting was established as a
genre Genre () is any form or type of communication in any mode (written, spoken, digital, artistic, etc.) with socially-agreed-upon conventions developed over time. In popular usage, it normally describes a category of literature, music, or other for ...
in Europe, as a setting for human activity, often expressed in a religious subject, such as the themes of the
Rest on the Flight into Egypt
', the ''Journey of the Magi'', or ''Saint Jerome in the Desert''. Luxury
illuminated manuscript An illuminated manuscript is a formally prepared document where the text is often supplemented with flourishes such as borders and miniature illustrations. Often used in the Roman Catholic Church for prayers, liturgical services and psalms, the ...
s were very important in the early development of landscape, especially series of the
Labours of the Months The term Labours of the Months refers to cycles in Medieval and early Renaissance art depicting in twelve scenes the rural activities that commonly took place in the months of the year. They are often linked to the signs of the Zodiac, and are ...
such as those in the
Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry The Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry (; en, The Very Rich Hours of the Duke of Berry) or Très Riches Heures, is the most famous and possibly the best surviving example of manuscript illumination in the late phase of the International Goth ...
, which conventionally showed small genre figures in increasingly large landscape settings. A particular advance is shown in the less well-known Turin-Milan Hours, now largely destroyed by fire, whose developments were reflected in
Early Netherlandish painting Early Netherlandish painting, traditionally known as the Flemish Primitives, refers to the work of artists active in the Burgundian and Habsburg Netherlands during the 15th- and 16th-century Northern Renaissance period. It flourished especiall ...
for the rest of the century. The artist known as "Hand G", probably one of the
Van Eyck Van Eyck or Van Eijk () is a Dutch toponymic surname. ''Eijck'', ''Eyck'', ''Eyk'' and ''Eijk'' are all archaic spellings of modern Dutch ("oak") and the surname literally translates as "from/of oak". However, in most cases, the family name refers ...
brothers, was especially successful in reproducing effects of light and in a natural-seeming progression from the foreground to the distant view. This was something other artists were to find difficult for a century or more, often solving the problem by showing a landscape background from over the top of a parapet or window-sill, as if from a considerable height.


Renaissance

Landscape backgrounds for various types of painting became increasingly prominent and skillful during the 15th century. The period around the end of the 15th century saw pure landscape drawings and watercolours from
Leonardo da Vinci Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (15 April 14522 May 1519) was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, Drawing, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. While his fame initially res ...
,
Albrecht Dürer Albrecht Dürer (; ; hu, Ajtósi Adalbert; 21 May 1471 – 6 April 1528),Müller, Peter O. (1993) ''Substantiv-Derivation in Den Schriften Albrecht Dürers'', Walter de Gruyter. . sometimes spelled in English as Durer (without an umlaut) or Due ...
,
Fra Bartolomeo Fra Bartolomeo or Bartolommeo (, , ; 28 March 1472 – 31 October 1517), also known as Bartolommeo di Pagholo, Bartolommeo di S. Marco, and his original nickname Baccio della Porta, was an Italian Renaissance painter of religious subjects. ...
and others, but pure landscape subjects in painting and
printmaking Printmaking is the process of creating artworks by printing, normally on paper, but also on fabric, wood, metal, and other surfaces. "Traditional printmaking" normally covers only the process of creating prints using a hand processed techniq ...
, still small, were first produced by
Albrecht Altdorfer Albrecht Altdorfer (12 February 1538) was a German painter, engraver and architect of the Renaissance working in Regensburg, Bavaria. Along with Lucas Cranach the Elder and Wolf Huber he is regarded to be the main representative of the Danube Sc ...
and others of the German Danube School in the early 16th century. However, the outsides of the wings of a
triptych A triptych ( ; from the Greek language, Greek adjective ''τρίπτυχον'' "''triptukhon''" ("three-fold"), from ''tri'', i.e., "three" and ''ptysso'', i.e., "to fold" or ''ptyx'', i.e., "fold") is a work of art (usually a panel painting) t ...
by
Gerard David Gerard David (c. 1460 – 13 August 1523) was an Early Netherlandish painter and manuscript illuminator known for his brilliant use of color. Only a bare outline of his life survives, although some facts are known. He may have been the Meester ...
, dated to "about 1510-15", are the earliest from the
Low Countries The term Low Countries, also known as the Low Lands ( nl, de Lage Landen, french: les Pays-Bas, lb, déi Niddereg Lännereien) and historically called the Netherlands ( nl, de Nederlanden), Flanders, or Belgica, is a coastal lowland region in N ...
, and possibly in Europe. At the same time
Joachim Patinir Joachim Patinir, also called Patenier (c. 1480 – 5 October 1524), was a Flemish Renaissance painter of history and landscape subjects. He was Flemish, from the area of modern Wallonia, but worked in Antwerp, then the centre of the art market ...
in the
Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...
developed the "
world landscape The world landscape, a translation of the German ''Weltlandschaft'', is a type of composition in Western painting showing an imaginary panoramic landscape seen from an elevated viewpoint that includes mountains and lowlands, water, and buildings. ...
" a style of panoramic landscape with small figures and using a high aerial viewpoint, that remained influential for a century, being used and perfected by
Pieter Brueghel the Elder Pieter Bruegel (also Brueghel or Breughel) the Elder (, ; ; – 9 September 1569) was the most significant artist of Dutch and Flemish Renaissance painting, a painter and printmaker, known for his landscapes and peasant scenes (so-called gen ...
. The Italian development of a thorough system of
graphical perspective Linear or point-projection perspective (from la, perspicere 'to see through') is one of two types of graphical projection perspective in the graphic arts; the other is parallel projection. Linear perspective is an approximate representation, ...
was now known all over Europe, which allowed large and complex views to be painted very effectively. Landscapes were idealized, mostly reflecting a
pastoral A pastoral lifestyle is that of shepherds herding livestock around open areas of land according to seasons and the changing availability of water and pasture. It lends its name to a genre of literature, art, and music (pastorale) that depicts ...
ideal drawn from classical poetry which was first fully expressed by
Giorgione Giorgione (, , ; born Giorgio Barbarelli da Castelfranco; 1477–78 or 1473–74 – 17 September 1510) was an Italian painter of the Venetian school during the High Renaissance, who died in his thirties. He is known for the elusive poetic qualit ...
and the young
Titian Tiziano Vecelli or Vecellio (; 27 August 1576), known in English as Titian ( ), was an Italians, Italian (Republic of Venice, Venetian) painter of the Renaissance, considered the most important member of the 16th-century Venetian school (art), ...
, and remained associated above all with hilly wooded Italian landscape, which was depicted by artists from Northern Europe who had never visited Italy, just as plain-dwelling literati in China and Japan painted vertiginous mountains. Though often young artists were encouraged to visit Italy to experience ''Italian light'', many Northern European artists could make their living selling ''Italianate'' landscapes without ever bothering to make the trip. Indeed, certain styles were so popular that they became formulas that could be copied again and again. The publication in
Antwerp Antwerp (; nl, Antwerpen ; french: Anvers ; es, Amberes) is the largest city in Belgium by area at and the capital of Antwerp Province in the Flemish Region. With a population of 520,504,
in 1559 and 1561 of two series of a total of 48 prints (the ''Small Landscapes'') after drawings by an anonymous artist referred to as the
Master of the Small Landscapes The Master of the Small Landscapes (in Dutch language, Dutch: Meester van de Kleine Landschappen) was a Seventeen Provinces, Flemish artist from the mid-16th century known for his landscape drawings. The name of this unidentified artist is deri ...
signaled a shift away from the imaginary, distant landscapes with religious content of the world landscape towards close-up renderings at eye-level of identifiable country estates and villages populated with figures engaged in daily activities. By abandoning the panoramic viewpoint of the world landscape and focusing on the humble, rural and even topographical, the Small Landscapes set the stage for Netherlandish landscape painting in the 17th century. After the publication of the Small Landscapes, landscape artists in the Low Countries either continued with the world landscape or followed the new mode presented by the Small Landscapes.


17th and 18th centuries

The popularity of exotic landscape scenes can be seen in the success of the painter
Frans Post Frans Janszoon Post (17 November 1612 – 17 February 1680) was a painter during the Dutch Golden Age. He was the first European artist to paint landscapes of the Americas, during and after the period of Dutch Brazil In 1636 he traveled to ...
, who spent the rest of his life painting Brazilian landscapes after a trip there in 1636–1644. Other painters who never crossed the Alps could make money selling
Rhineland The Rhineland (german: Rheinland; french: Rhénanie; nl, Rijnland; ksh, Rhingland; Latinised name: ''Rhenania'') is a loosely defined area of Western Germany along the Rhine, chiefly its middle section. Term Historically, the Rhinelands ...
landscapes, and still others for constructing fantasy scenes for a particular commission such as
Cornelis de Man Cornelis de Man (1 July 1621, in Delft – 1 September 1706, in Delft) was a Dutch Golden Age painter. Biography As a young man, Kornelis was not satisfied with life in Delft. He wanted to travel beyond the port of Dordrecht and that is what h ...
's view of
Smeerenburg Smeerenburg was a whaling settlement on Amsterdam Island in northwest Svalbard. It was founded by the Danish and Dutch in 1619 as one of Europe's northernmost outposts. With the local bowhead whale population soon decimated and whaling deve ...
in 1639. Compositional formulae using elements like the
repoussoir In two-dimensional works of art, such as painting, printmaking, photography or bas-relief, ''repoussoir'' (, ''pushing back'') is an object along the right or left foreground that directs the viewer's eye into the composition by bracketing ( fra ...
were evolved which remain influential in modern photography and painting, notably by
Poussin Nicolas Poussin (, , ; June 1594 – 19 November 1665) was the leading painter of the classical French Baroque style, although he spent most of his working life in Rome. Most of his works were on religious and mythological subjects painted for ...
and
Claude Lorrain Claude Lorrain (; born Claude Gellée , called ''le Lorrain'' in French; traditionally just Claude in English; c. 1600 – 23 November 1682) was a French painter, draughtsman and etcher of the Baroque era. He spent most of his life in It ...
, both French artists living in 17th century Rome and painting largely classical subject-matter, or Biblical scenes set in the same landscapes. Unlike their Dutch contemporaries, Italian and French landscape artists still most often wanted to keep their classification within the
hierarchy of genres A hierarchy of genres is any formalization which ranks different genres in an art form in terms of their prestige and cultural value. In literature, the epic was considered the highest form, for the reason expressed by Samuel Johns ...
as
history painting History painting is a genre in painting defined by its subject matter rather than any artistic style or specific period. History paintings depict a moment in a narrative story, most often (but not exclusively) Greek and Roman mythology and Bible ...
by including small figures to represent a scene from
classical mythology Classical mythology, Greco-Roman mythology, or Greek and Roman mythology is both the body of and the study of myths from the ancient Greeks and ancient Romans as they are used or transformed by cultural reception. Along with philosophy and polit ...
or the Bible. Salvator Rosa gave picturesque excitement to his landscapes by showing wilder Southern Italian country, often populated by ''banditi''.
Dutch Golden Age painting Dutch Golden Age painting is the painting of the Dutch Golden Age, a period in Dutch history roughly spanning the 17th century, during and after the later part of the Eighty Years' War (1568–1648) for Dutch independence. The new Dutch Republ ...
of the 17th century saw the dramatic growth of landscape painting, in which many artists specialized, and the development of extremely subtle realist techniques for depicting light and weather. There are different styles and periods, and sub-genres of marine and animal painting, as well as a distinct style of Italianate landscape. Most Dutch landscapes were relatively small, but landscapes in
Flemish Baroque painting Flemish Baroque painting refers to the art produced in the Southern Netherlands during Spanish control in the 16th and 17th centuries. The period roughly begins when the Dutch Republic was split from the Habsburg Spain regions to the south with ...
, still usually peopled, were often very large, above all in the series of works that
Peter Paul Rubens Sir Peter Paul Rubens (; ; 28 June 1577 – 30 May 1640) was a Flemish artist and diplomat from the Duchy of Brabant in the Southern Netherlands (modern-day Belgium). He is considered the most influential artist of the Flemish Baroque traditio ...
painted for his own houses. Landscape prints were also popular, with those of
Rembrandt Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (, ; 15 July 1606 – 4 October 1669), usually simply known as Rembrandt, was a Dutch Golden Age painter, printmaker and draughtsman. An innovative and prolific master in three media, he is generally consid ...
and the experimental works of
Hercules Seghers Hercules Pieterszoon Seghers or Segers ( 1589 – 1638) was a Dutch painter and printmaker of the Dutch Golden Age. Segers is in fact the more common form in contemporary documents, and was used by the painter himself (modern use is about equall ...
usually considered the finest. The Dutch tended to make smaller paintings for smaller houses. Some Dutch landscape specialties named in period inventories include the ''Batalje'', or battle-scene; the ''Maneschijntje'', or moonlight scene; the ''Bosjes'', or woodland scene; the ''Boederijtje'', or farm scene, and the ''Dorpje'' or village scene. Though not named at the time as a specific genre, the popularity of Roman ruins inspired many Dutch landscape painters of the period to paint the ruins of their own region, such as monasteries and churches ruined after the
Beeldenstorm ''Beeldenstorm'' () in Dutch and ''Bildersturm'' in German (roughly translatable from both languages as 'attack on the images or statues') are terms used for outbreaks of destruction of religious images that occurred in Europe in the 16th centu ...
.
Jacob van Ruisdael Jacob Isaackszoon van Ruisdael (;  1629 – 10 March 1682) was a Dutch painter, draughtsman, and etcher. He is generally considered the pre-eminent landscape painter of the Dutch Golden Age, a period of great wealth and cultural ach ...
is considered the most versatile of all Dutch Golden Age landscape painters. The popularity of landscapes in the Netherlands was in part a reflection of the virtual disappearance of religious painting in a
Calvinist Calvinism (also called the Reformed Tradition, Reformed Protestantism, Reformed Christianity, or simply Reformed) is a major branch of Protestantism that follows the theological tradition and forms of Christian practice set down by John Ca ...
society, and the decline of religious painting in the 18th and 19th centuries all over Europe combined with
Romanticism Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic, literary, musical, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century, and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate ...
to give landscapes a much greater and more prestigious place in 19th-century art than they had assumed before. In England, landscapes had initially been mostly backgrounds to portraits, typically suggesting the parks or estates of a landowner, though mostly painted in London by an artist who had never visited his sitter's rolling acres. The English tradition was founded by
Anthony van Dyck Sir Anthony van Dyck (, many variant spellings; 22 March 1599 – 9 December 1641) was a Brabantian Flemish Baroque artist who became the leading court painter in England after success in the Southern Netherlands and Italy. The seventh c ...
and other mostly
Flemish Flemish (''Vlaams'') is a Low Franconian dialect cluster of the Dutch language. It is sometimes referred to as Flemish Dutch (), Belgian Dutch ( ), or Southern Dutch (). Flemish is native to Flanders, a historical region in northern Belgium; ...
artists working in England, but in the 18th century the works of Claude Lorrain were keenly collected and influenced not only paintings of landscapes, but the
English landscape garden The English landscape garden, also called English landscape park or simply the English garden (french: Jardin à l'anglaise, it, Giardino all'inglese, german: Englischer Landschaftsgarten, pt, Jardim inglês, es, Jardín inglés), is a sty ...
s of
Capability Brown Lancelot Brown (born c. 1715–16, baptised 30 August 1716 – 6 February 1783), more commonly known as Capability Brown, was an English gardener and landscape architect, who remains the most famous figure in the history of the English la ...
and others. In the 18th century,
watercolour Watercolor (American English) or watercolour (British English; see spelling differences), also ''aquarelle'' (; from Italian diminutive of Latin ''aqua'' "water"), is a painting method”Watercolor may be as old as art itself, going back to t ...
painting, mostly of landscapes, became an English specialty, with both a buoyant market for professional works, and a large number of amateur painters, many following the popular systems found in the books of
Alexander Cozens Alexander Cozens (1717–1786) was a British landscape painter in watercolours, born in Russia, in Saint Petersburg. He taught drawing and wrote treatises on the subject, evolving a method in which imaginative drawings of landscapes could be wor ...
and others. By the beginning of the 19th century the English artists with the highest modern reputations were mostly dedicated landscape painters, showing the wide range of Romantic interpretations of the English landscape found in the works of
John Constable John Constable (; 11 June 1776 – 31 March 1837) was an English landscape painter in the Romanticism, Romantic tradition. Born in Suffolk, he is known principally for revolutionising the genre of landscape painting with his pictures of Dedha ...
,
J.M.W. Turner Joseph Mallord William Turner (23 April 177519 December 1851), known in his time as William Turner, was an English Romantic painter, printmaker and watercolourist. He is known for his expressive colouring, imaginative landscapes and turbule ...
and
Samuel Palmer Samuel Palmer Hon.RE (Hon. Fellow of the Society of Painter-Etchers) (27 January 180524 May 1881) was a British landscape painter, etcher and printmaker. He was also a prolific writer. Palmer was a key figure in Romanticism in Britain and pr ...
. However all these had difficulty establishing themselves in the contemporary art market, which still preferred history paintings and portraits. In Europe, as
John Ruskin John Ruskin (8 February 1819 20 January 1900) was an English writer, philosopher, art critic and polymath of the Victorian era. He wrote on subjects as varied as geology, architecture, myth, ornithology, literature, education, botany and politi ...
said, and
Sir Kenneth Clark Kenneth Mackenzie Clark, Baron Clark (13 July 1903 – 21 May 1983) was a British art historian, museum director, and broadcaster. After running two important art galleries in the 1930s and 1940s, he came to wider public notice on television ...
confirmed, landscape painting was the "chief artistic creation of the nineteenth century", and "the dominant art", with the result that in the following period people were "apt to assume that the appreciation of natural beauty and the painting of landscape is a normal and enduring part of our spiritual activity" In Clark's analysis, underlying European ways to convert the complexity of landscape to an idea were four fundamental approaches: the acceptance of descriptive symbols, a curiosity about the facts of nature, the creation of fantasy to allay deep-rooted fears of nature, and the belief in a
Golden Age The term Golden Age comes from Greek mythology, particularly the ''Works and Days'' of Hesiod, and is part of the description of temporal decline of the state of peoples through five Ages of Man, Ages, Gold being the first and the one during ...
of harmony and order, which might be retrieved. The 18th century was also a great age for the topographical print, depicting more or less accurately a real view in a way that landscape painting rarely did. Initially these were mostly centred on a building, but over the course of the century, with the growth of the
Romantic movement Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic, literary, musical, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century, and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate ...
pure landscapes became more common. The topographical print, often intended to be framed and hung on a wall, remained a very popular medium into the 20th century, but was often classed as a lower form of art than an imagined landscape. Landscapes in
watercolour Watercolor (American English) or watercolour (British English; see spelling differences), also ''aquarelle'' (; from Italian diminutive of Latin ''aqua'' "water"), is a painting method”Watercolor may be as old as art itself, going back to t ...
on paper became a distinct specialism, above all in England, where a particular tradition of talented artists who only, or almost entirely, painted landscape watercolours developed, as it did not in other countries. These were very often real views, though sometimes the compositions were adjusted for artistic effect. The paintings sold relatively cheaply, but were far quicker to produce. These professionals could augment their income by training the "armies of amateurs" who also painted. Leading artists included
John Robert Cozens John Robert Cozens (1752 – 14 December 1797) was a British draftsman and painter of romantic watercolour landscapes. Cozens executed watercolors in curious atmospheric effects and illusions which had an influence on Thomas Girtin and J.M. ...
, Francis Towne,
Thomas Girtin Thomas Girtin (18 February 17759 November 1802) was an English watercolourist and etcher. A friend and rival of J. M. W. Turner, Girtin played a key role in establishing watercolour as a reputable art form. Life Thomas Girtin was born in Sou ...
,
Michael Angelo Rooker Michael Angelo Rooker (1746 or 1743 – 3 March 1801) was an English oil and watercolour painter of architecture and landscapes, illustrator and engraver. He was also the principal scene painter at the Haymarket Theatre. Life and work Mic ...
,
William Pars William Pars (28 February 1742 – 1782) was an English watercolour portrait and landscape painter, draughtsman, and illustrator. Life and works Pars was born in London, the son of a metal engraver. He studied at "Shipley's Drawing Schoo ...
, Thomas Hearne, and
John Warwick Smith John "Warwick" Smith (26 July 1749 – 22 March 1831) was a British watercolour landscape painter and illustrator. Life and work Smith was born at Irthington, near Carlisle, Cumberland, the son of a gardener to the Gilpin family, ...
, all in the late 18th century, and John Glover,
Joseph Mallord William Turner Joseph Mallord William Turner (23 April 177519 December 1851), known in his time as William Turner, was an English Romantic painter, printmaker and watercolourist. He is known for his expressive colouring, imaginative landscapes and turbule ...
, John Varley,
John Sell Cotman John Sell Cotman (16 May 1782 – 24 July 1842) was an English marine and landscape painter, etcher, illustrator, author and a leading member of the Norwich School of painters. Born in Norwich, the son of a silk merchant and lace dealer, Co ...
, Anthony Copley Fielding,
Samuel Palmer Samuel Palmer Hon.RE (Hon. Fellow of the Society of Painter-Etchers) (27 January 180524 May 1881) was a British landscape painter, etcher and printmaker. He was also a prolific writer. Palmer was a key figure in Romanticism in Britain and pr ...
in the early 19th.


19th and 20th centuries

The Romantic movement intensified the existing interest in landscape art, and remote and wild landscapes, which had been one recurring element in earlier landscape art, now became more prominent. The German
Caspar David Friedrich Caspar David Friedrich (5 September 1774 – 7 May 1840) was a 19th-century German Romantic landscape painter, generally considered the most important German artist of his generation. He is best known for his mid-period allegorical landscape ...
had a distinctive style, influenced by his Art of Denmark, Danish training, where a distinct national style, drawing on the Dutch 17th-century example, had developed. To this he added a quasi-mystical Romanticism. French painters were slower to develop landscape painting, but from about the 1830s Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot and other painters in the Barbizon School established a French landscape tradition that would become the most influential in Europe for a century, with the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists for the first time making landscape painting the main source of general stylistic innovation across all types of painting. The nationalism of the new Dutch Republic, United Provinces had been a factor in the popularity of Dutch 17th-century landscape painting and in the 19th century, as other nations attempted to develop distinctive national schools of painting, the attempt to express the special nature of the landscape of the homeland became a general tendency. In Russia, as in America, the gigantic size of paintings was itself a nationalist statement. In Spain, the main promoter of the genre was the Belgium-born painter Carlos de Haes, one of the most active landscape professors at the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando in Madrid since 1857. After studying with the great Flemish landscape masters, he developed his technique to paint outdoors. Back in Spain, Haes took his students with him to paint in the countryside; under his teaching the "painters proliferated and took advantage of the new railway system to explore the furthest corners of the nation's topography." In the United States, the Hudson River School, prominent in the middle to late 19th century, is probably the best-known native development in landscape art. These painters created works of mammoth scale that attempted to capture the epic scope of the landscapes that inspired them. The work of Thomas Cole, the school's generally acknowledged founder, has much in common with the philosophical ideals of European landscape paintings — a kind of secular faith in the spiritual benefits to be gained from the contemplation of natural beauty. Some of the later Hudson River School artists, such as Albert Bierstadt, created less comforting works that placed a greater emphasis (with a great deal of Romantic exaggeration) on the raw, even terrifying power of nature. Frederic Edwin Church, a student of Cole, synthesized the ideas of his contemporaries with those of European Old Masters and the writings of
John Ruskin John Ruskin (8 February 1819 20 January 1900) was an English writer, philosopher, art critic and polymath of the Victorian era. He wrote on subjects as varied as geology, architecture, myth, ornithology, literature, education, botany and politi ...
and Alexander von Humboldt to become the foremost American landscape painter of the century. The best examples of Canadian landscape art can be found in the works of the Group of Seven (artists), Group of Seven, prominent in the 1920s. Although certainly less dominant in the period after World War I, many significant artists still painted landscapes in the wide variety of styles exemplified by Edvard Munch, Georgia O'Keeffe, Charles E. Burchfield, Neil Welliver, Alex Katz, Milton Avery, Peter Doig, Andrew Wyeth, David Hockney and Sidney Nolan.


Gallery

File:John Constable The Hay Wain.jpg,
John Constable John Constable (; 11 June 1776 – 31 March 1837) was an English landscape painter in the Romanticism, Romantic tradition. Born in Suffolk, he is known principally for revolutionising the genre of landscape painting with his pictures of Dedha ...
, 1821, ''The Hay Wain''. Early
Romanticism Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic, literary, musical, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century, and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate ...
File:Joseph Mallord William Turner 015.jpg,
Joseph Mallord William Turner Joseph Mallord William Turner (23 April 177519 December 1851), known in his time as William Turner, was an English Romantic painter, printmaker and watercolourist. He is known for his expressive colouring, imaginative landscapes and turbule ...
, ''The Park at Petworth House'', c. 1830 File:Church Heart of the Andes.jpg, Frederic Edwin Church, ''The Heart of the Andes,'' 1859. Church was part of the American Hudson River School. File:Aivasovsky Ivan Constantinovich The Caucasus.jpg, Ivan Aivazovsky, 1863, ''The Caucasus''. Late
Romanticism Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic, literary, musical, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century, and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate ...
File:Corot.villedavray.750pix.jpg, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, c. 1867, ''Ville d'Avray (painting), Ville d'Avray'' National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. Barbizon school File:Pissarro lordship.jpg, Camille Pissarro, ''Lordship Lane railway station, Lordship Lane Station'', East Dulwich, London, England, c. 1870. Impressionism. File:Paul Cézanne - Mont Sainte-Victoire and the Viaduct of the Arc River Valley (Metropolitan Museum of Art).jpg, Paul Cézanne, ''Mont Sainte-Victoire (Cézanne), Mont Sainte-Victoire,'' 1882–1885, Metropolitan Museum of Art. Post-Impressionism File:Claude Monet - Branch of the Seine near Giverny.JPG, Claude Monet, ''Branch of the Seine near Giverny,'' 1897. The Impressionism, Impressionists often, though by no means always, painted en plein air. File:Shishkin DozVDubLesu 114.jpg, Ivan Shishkin, ''Rain in an Oak Forest'', 1891, Tretyakov Gallery. Peredvizhniki File:Levitan nad vech pok28.jpg, Isaac Levitan, ''Above Eternal Peace,'' 1894. File:VanGogh-starry night ballance1.jpg, Vincent van Gogh, ''The Starry Night'', 1889, The Museum of Modern Art, New York City. Post-Impressionism File:'Scottish Highlands'.jpg, Henry Bates Joel, Henry Bates Joel's 1890's 'Scottish Highlands'; a Romanticism, late-romantic stylized interpretation of nature typical of Victorian era, Victorian painting. File:Giving Directions by Willis Pryce.jpg, "Giving Directions" by George Willis-Pryce.


East Asian tradition


China

Landscape painting has been called "China's greatest contribution to the art of the world", and owes its special character to the Taoism, Taoist (Daoist) tradition in Chinese culture. William Watson (sinologist), William Watson notes that "It has been said that the role of landscape art in Chinese painting corresponds to that of the nude in the west, as a theme unvarying in itself, but made the vehicle of infinite nuances of vision and feeling". There are increasingly sophisticated landscape backgrounds to figure subjects showing hunting, farming or animals from the Han dynasty onwards, with surviving examples mostly in stone or clay reliefs from tombs, which are presumed to follow the prevailing styles in painting, no doubt without capturing the full effect of the original paintings. The exact status of the later copies of reputed works by famous painters (many of whom are recorded in literature) before the 10th century is unclear. One example is a famous 8th-century painting from the Imperial collection, titled ''The Emperor Ming Huang traveling in Shu''. This shows the entourage riding through vertiginous mountains of the type typical of later paintings, but is in full colour "producing an overall pattern that is almost Persian", in what was evidently a popular and fashionable court style. The decisive shift to a monochrome landscape style, almost devoid of figures, is attributed to Wang Wei (Tang dynasty), Wang Wei (699-759), also famous as a poet; mostly only copies of his works survive. From the 10th century onwards an increasing number of original paintings survive, and the best works of the Song Dynasty (960–1279) Southern School remain among the most highly regarded in what has been an uninterrupted tradition to the present day. Chinese convention valued the paintings of the amateur scholar-bureaucrats, scholar-gentleman, often a poet as well, over those produced by professionals, though the situation was more complex than that. If they include any figures, they are very often such persons, or sages, contemplating the mountains. Famous works have accumulated numbers of red Seal (East Asia)#Studio 齋印, "appreciation seals", and often poems added by later owners - the Qianlong Emperor (1711–1799) was a prolific adder of his own poems, following earlier Emperors. The shan shui tradition was never intended to represent actual locations, even when named after them, as in the convention of the Eight Views. A different style, produced by workshops of professional court artists, painted official views of Imperial tours and ceremonies, with the primary emphasis on highly detailed scenes of crowded cities and grand ceremonials from a high viewpoint. These were painted on scrolls of enormous length in bright colour (example below). Chinese sculpture also achieves the difficult feat of creating effective landscapes in three dimensions. There is a long tradition of the appreciation of "Chinese scholar's rocks, viewing stones" - naturally formed boulders, typically limestone from the banks of mountain rivers that has been eroded into fantastic shapes, were transported to the courtyards and gardens of the literati. Probably associated with these is the tradition of carving much smaller boulders of jade or some other semi-precious stone into the shape of a mountain, including tiny figures of monks or sages. Chinese gardens also developed a highly sophisticated aesthetic much earlier than those in the West; the ''karensansui'' or Japanese rock garden, Japanese dry garden of Zen Buddhism takes the garden even closer to being a work of sculpture, representing a highly abstracted landscape. File:Li Cheng, Luxuriant Forest among Distant Peaks.jpg, Li Cheng (painter), Li Cheng (; 919–967), ''Luxuriant Forest among Distant Peaks'', detail, Liaoning Provincial Museum, 10th century China Image:Fan Kuan - Travelers Among Mountains and Streams - Google Art Project.jpg, Fan Kuan (, c. 960 – c. 1030), ''Travellers among Mountains and Streams'' (谿山行旅), ink and slight color on silk, dimensions of 6¾ ft x 2½ ft. 11th century, China.Ebrey, ''Cambridge Illustrated History of China'', 162. National Palace Museum, TaipeiLiu, 50. Image:Xia Gui, Streams and Mountains with a Clear Distant View, detail.jpg, Detail from the hand scroll ''Pure and Remote View of Streams and Mountains'', one of Xia Gui's most important works, 13th century China Image:Likan Bamboo and Rocks.jpg, Li Kan (painter), Li Kan, ''Bamboos and Rock'' c. 1300 AD., China File:Tao Chi 003.jpg, Tao Chi (painter), Tao Chi, late 17th century China Image:T'ang Yin 003.jpg, Tang Yin, ''A Fisher in Autumn'', 1523 AD., China Image:Poetonmountain.jpg, Shen Zhou, ''Poet on a Mountain'' c. 1500. Painting and poem by Shen Zhou: "White clouds encircle the mountain waist like a sash,/Stone steps mount high into the void where the narrow path leads far./Alone, leaning on my rustic staff I gaze idly into the distance./My longing for the notes of a flute is answered in the murmurings of the gorge." File:Autumn flowers and white pheasants 秋花白鷴图.jpg, Cai Han and Jin Xiaozhu, ''Autumn Flowers and White Pheasants'', 17th century, China. File:ShiTao-Pine Pavilion Near A Spring.jpg, Shitao, ''Pine Pavilion Near a Spring'', 1675, collection of the Shanghai Museum, 17th century, China.


Japan

Japanese art initially adapted Chinese styles to reflect their interest in narrative themes in art, with scenes set in landscapes mixing with those showing palace or city scenes using the same high view point, cutting away roofs as necessary. These appeared in the very long yamato-e scrolls of scenes illustrating the ''Tale of Genji'' and other subjects, mostly from the 12th and 13th centuries. The concept of the gentleman-amateur painter had little resonance in feudal Japan, where artists were generally professionals with a strong bond to their master and his school, rather than the classic artists from the distant past, from which Chinese painters tended to draw their inspiration. Painting was initially fully coloured, often brightly so, and the landscape never overwhelms the figures who are often rather oversized. The scene from the ''Biography of the Priest Ippen'' illustrated below is from a scroll that in full measures 37.8 cm × 802.0 cm, for only one of twelve scrolls illustrating the life of a Buddhist monk; like their Western counterparts, monasteries and temples commissioned many such works, and these have had a better chance of survival than courtly equivalents. Even rarer are survivals of landscape byōbu folding screens and hanging scrolls, which seem to have common in court circles - the ''Tale of Genji'' has an episode where members of the court produce the best paintings from their collections for a competition. These were closer to Chinese shan shui, but still fully coloured. Many more pure landscape subjects survive from the 15th century onwards; several key artists are Zen Buddhist clergy, and worked in a monochrome style with greater emphasis on brush strokes in the Chinese manner. Some schools adopted a less refined style, with smaller views giving greater emphasis to the foreground. A type of image that had an enduring appeal for Japanese artists, and came to be called the "Japanese style", is in fact first found in China. This combines one or more large birds, animals or trees in the foreground, typically to one side in a horizontal composition, with a wider landscape beyond, often only covering portions of the background. Later versions of this style often dispensed with a landscape background altogether. The ukiyo-e style that developed from the 16th century onwards, first in painting and then in Woodblock printing in Japan, coloured woodblock prints that were cheap and widely available, initially concentrated on the human figure, individually and in groups. But from the late 18th century landscape ukiyo-e developed under Hokusai and Hiroshige to become much the best known type of Japanese landscape art. Image:Shubun - untitled.jpg, Tenshō Shūbun, a Zen Buddhist monk, an early figure in the revival of Chinese styles in Japan. ''Reading in a Bamboo Grove,'' 1446, Japan File:Zhou Maoshu Appreciating Lotuses.jpg, Kanō Masanobu, 15th century founder of the Kanō school, which dominated Japanese brush painting until the 19th century, ''Zhou Maoshu Appreciating Lotuses'', hanging scroll File:Japanischer Maler 001.jpg, ''The Bridge at Ubi'' a famous screen composition, found in many 16th or 17th century versions, showing the colourful abstracted style of the professional painters. Yamato-e style of Japanese painting. File:Ippen Biography 13.jpg, A scene from the ''Biography of the Priest Ippen'' yamato-e scroll, 1299


Persia and India

Though there are some landscape elements in earlier art, the landscape tradition of the Persian miniature really begins in the Ilkhanid period, largely under Chinese influence. Rocky mountainous country is preferred, which is shown full of animals and plants which are carefully and individually depicted, as are rock formations. The particular convention of the elevated viewpoint that developed in the tradition fills most of the vertical format picture spaces with the landscape, though clouds are also typically shown in the sky, shown in a curling convention drawn from Chinese art. Usually, everything seen is fairly close to the viewer, and there are few distant views. Normally all landscape images show narrative scenes with figures, but there are a few drawn pure landscape scenes in albums. Hindu painting had long set scenes amid lush vegetation, as many of the stories depicted demanded. Mughal painting combined this and the Persian style, and in miniatures of royal hunts often depicted wide landscapes. Scenes set during the monsoon rains, with dark clouds and flashes of lightning, are popular. Later, influence from European prints is evident. File:Sleeping Rustam.jpg, The Persian hero Rustam sleeps, while his horse Rakhsh fends off a lion. Probably an early work by Sultan Mohammed, 1515–20 File:"The Feast of Sada", Folio 22v from the Shahnama (Book of Kings) of Shah Tahmasp MET is1970.301.2.R (cropped).jpg, ''The Feast of Sada'', Folio 22v from the Shahnama of Shah Tahmasp, Sultan Mohammed, c. 1525 File:Nizami - Khusraw discovers Shirin bathing in a pool.jpg, Khosrow and Shirin, Khusraw discovers Shirin bathing in a pool, a favourite scene, here from 1548. The black stream is silver that has oxidized. File:Sudama bows at the glimpse of Krishna's golden palace in Dwarka. ca 1775-1790 painting.jpg, Sudama bows at the glimpse of Krishna's golden palace in Dwarka. ca 1775-1790 Pahari painting. File:Jahangir's Lion Hunt ca. 1615, Aga Khan Museum, Geneva.jpg, The Mughal emperor Jahangir's Lion Hunt, c. 1615, in a Persian-style landscape File:Jahangir hunting with a falcon..jpg, Jahangir hunting with a falcon, in Western-style country. File:6 Master of the Isarda Bhagavata Purana. The Gopis Plead with Krishna to Return Their Clothing. Folio from Isarda Bhagavata Purana. 1560-65, Metmuseum.jpg, ''The Gopis Plead with Krishna to Return Their Clothing'', 1560s


Techniques

Most early landscapes are clearly imaginary, although from very early on townscape views are clearly intended to represent actual cities, with varying degrees of accuracy. Various techniques were used to simulate the randomness of natural forms in invented compositions: the medieval advice of Cennino Cennini to copy ragged crags from small rough rocks was apparently followed by both
Poussin Nicolas Poussin (, , ; June 1594 – 19 November 1665) was the leading painter of the classical French Baroque style, although he spent most of his working life in Rome. Most of his works were on religious and mythological subjects painted for ...
and Thomas Gainsborough, while Degas copied cloud forms from a crumpled handkerchief held up against the light. The system of Alexander Cozens used random ink blots to give the basic shape of an invented landscape, to be elaborated by the artist. The distinctive background view across Lake Geneva to the Le Môle peak in ''The Miraculous Draught of Fishes'' by Konrad Witz (1444) is often cited as the first Western rural landscape to show a specific scene.Clark, 34 The landscape studies by Dürer clearly represent actual scenes, which can be identified in many cases, and were at least partly made on the spot; the drawings by Fra Bartolomeo also seem clearly sketched from nature. Dürer's finished works seem generally to use invented landscapes, although the spectacular bird's-eye view in his engraving ''Nemesis'' shows an actual view in the Alps, with additional elements. Several landscapists are known to have made drawings and watercolour sketches from nature, but the evidence for early oil painting being done outside is limited. The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood made special efforts in this direction, but it was not until the introduction of ready-mixed oil paints in tubes in the 1870s, followed by the portable "box easel", that painting en plein air became widely practiced. A curtain of mountains at the back of the landscape is standard in wide Roman views and even more so in Chinese landscapes. Relatively little space is given to the sky in early works in either tradition; the Chinese often used mist or clouds between mountains, and also sometimes show clouds in the sky far earlier than Western artists, who initially mainly use clouds as supports or covers for divine figures or heaven. Both panel paintings and miniatures in manuscripts usually had a patterned or gold "sky" or background above the horizon until about 1400, but
fresco Fresco (plural ''frescos'' or ''frescoes'') is a technique of mural painting executed upon freshly laid ("wet") lime plaster. Water is used as the vehicle for the dry-powder pigment to merge with the plaster, and with the setting of the plaste ...
s by Giotto and other Italian artists had long shown plain blue skies. The single surviving altarpiece from Melchior Broederlam, completed for Champmol in 1399, has a gold sky populated not only by God and angels, but also a flying bird. A coastal scene in the Turin-Milan Hours has a sky overcast with carefully observed clouds. In woodcuts a large blank space can cause the paper to sag during printing, so Dürer and other artists often include clouds or squiggles representing birds to avoid this. The monochrome Chinese tradition has used ink on silk or paper since its inception, with a great emphasis on the individual brushstroke to define the ''ts'un'' or "wrinkles" in mountain-sides, and the other features of the landscape. Western watercolour is a more tonal medium, even with underdrawing visible.


Related ''-scapes''

Traditionally, landscape art depicts the surface of the Earth, but there are other sorts of landscapes, such as moonscapes. *Skyscape art, Skyscapes or Cloudscape (art), Cloudscapes are depictions of clouds, weatherforms, and atmospheric conditions. *Moonscapes show the landscape of a moon. *Seascapes depict oceans or beaches. *Riverscapes depict rivers or creeks. *Cityscapes or townscapes depict cities (urban landscapes). * Battle scenes are a subdivision of military art, military painting which, when depicting a battle from afar, are set within a landscape, seascape or even a cityscape. *Hardscapes are paved over areas like streets and sidewalks, large business complexes and housing developments, and industrial areas. *Aerial landscapes depict a surface or ground from above, especially as seen from an airplane or spacecraft. (When the viewpoint is directly overhead, looking down, there is of course no depiction of a horizon or sky.) This genre can be combined with others, as in the aerial cloudscape art, cloudscapes of Georgia O'Keeffe, the aerial moonscapes of Nancy Graves, or the aerial cityscapes of Yvonne Jacquette. *Inscape (visual art), Inscapes are landscape-like (usually surrealist or abstract art, abstract) artworks which seek to convey the psychoanalytic view of the mind as a three-dimensional space. [For sources on this statement, see the Inscape (visual art) article.] *Vedute is the Italian term for ''view'', and generally used for the painted landscape, often cityscapes which were a common 18th-century painting thematic. *Landscape photography


Landscape and modernism

File:Albert Pinkham Ryder - Moonlit Cove - Google Art Project.jpg, Albert Pinkham Ryder, ''Seacoast in Moonlight'', 1890, the Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C. Proto-American Modernism, American Modernist associated with Tonalism. File:Wassily Kandinsky, 1903, The Blue Rider (Der Blaue Reiter), oil on canvas, 52.1 x 54.6 cm, Stiftung Sammlung E.G. Bührle, Zurich.jpg, Wassily Kandinsky, ''The Blue Rider (Kandinsky painting), Der Blaue Reiter'', 1903. Der Blaue Reiter, an Expressionist group active from 1911 to 1914. File:Matisse Les toits.jpg, Henri Matisse, ''Landscape at Collioure'', 1905, Museum of Modern Art, New York City. Fauvism a Modernist movement in Paris active from 1900 to 1907. File:André Derain, 1905, Le séchage des voiles (The Drying Sails), oil on canvas, 82 x 101 cm, Pushkin Museum, Moscow. Exhibited at the 1905 Salon d'Automne.jpg, André Derain, 1905, ''Le séchage des voiles (The Drying Sails)'', oil on canvas, 82 × 101 cm, Pushkin Museum, Moscow. Exhibited at the 1905 Salon d'Automne File:Jean Metzinger, 1906, Coucher de Soleil No. 1 (Landscape), oil on canvas, 72.5 x 100 cm, Rijksmuseum Kröller-Müller, Otterlo, Netherlands.jpg, Jean Metzinger, 1906, ''Coucher de soleil no. 1, Coucher de soleil no. 1 (Landscape)'', oil on canvas, 72.5 × 100 cm, Kröller-Müller Museum, Rijksmuseum Kröller-Müller, Otterlo, Netherlands File:Pablo Picasso, 1908, Paysage aux deux figures (Landscape with Two Figures), oil on canvas, 60 x 73 cm, Musée Picasso, Paris.jpg, Pablo Picasso, 1908, ''Paysage aux deux figures (Landscape with Two Figures)'', oil on canvas, 60 x 73 cm, Musée Picasso, Paris File:Henri Rousseau 005.jpg, Henri Rousseau, ''The Dream (Rousseau painting), The Dream'', 1910, Museum of Modern Art, New York City, New York File:Ernst Ludwig Kirchner Spielende nackte Menschen 1910-1.jpg, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, ''Naked Playing People'', 1910. Die Brücke, an Expressionist group active after 1905. File:Recoveredgleizes.jpg, Albert Gleizes, 1911, ''Le Chemin, Paysage à Meudon (Gleizes), Le Chemin, Paysage à Meudon, Paysage avec personnage'', oil on canvas, 146.4 × 114.4 cm. Stolen by Nazi occupiers from the home of collector Alphonse Kann during World War II


Landscape art movements


East Asian

; China *Southern School, 8th–16th centuries, also known as the literati school *Four Masters of the Yuan Dynasty *Four Masters of the Ming Dynasty *Six Masters of the early Qing period, including the Four Wangs ; Japan—often dynastic *Tosa school 14th or 15th century to 19th *Kanō school 15th to 19th centuries *Hasegawa school mid-16th to early 18th century *Nanga (Japanese painting), Nanga ("Southern painting"), professionals in the Edo period influenced by Chinese literati painting - 17th to 19th centuries


Western

; Pre–19th century *Danube school ; 19th and 20th century *American Barbizon school *American Impressionism *Amsterdam Impressionism *Barbizon School *Düsseldorf school of painting *Etching revival *Fauvism *Group of Seven (artists), Group of Seven (Canada) *Hague School *Heidelberg School, Heidelberg School (Australia) *Hoosier Group *Hudson River School *Impressionism *Luminism (American art style), Luminism (American) *Luminism (Impressionism) *Macchiaioli *Neo-Impressionism *Norwich School (art movement), Norwich School *Peredvizhniki *Pont-Aven School *Post-Impressionism *Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood *Ten American Painters, The Ten *Tonalism *White Mountain art *Land art


See also

*Claude glass *Landscape architecture *Vädersolstavlan *Visual arts *Skyscraper *:Landscape paintings


Notes


References

* Kenneth Clark, Clark, Sir Kenneth, ''Landscape into Art'', 1949, page refs to Penguin edn of 1961 * Dreikausen, Margret, "Aerial Perception: The Earth as Seen from Aircraft and Spacecraft and Its Influence on Contemporary Art" (Associated University Presses: Cranbury, NJ; London; Mississauga, Ontario: 1985) * Growth, Paul Erling Wilson, Chris, ''Everyday America: Cultural Landscape Studies After J.B. Jackson'', 2003, University of California Press, , 9780520229617
google books
* Hugh Honour and John Fleming, A World History of Art,1st edn. 1982 & later editions, Macmillan, London, page refs to 1984 Macmillan 1st edn. paperback. * Tim Ingold, Ingold, Tim, "Being Alive", 2011, Routledge, Abingdon * Jackson, John B., "The Word Itself", in ''The Cultural Geography Reader'', Eds. Tim Oakes, Patricia Lynn Price, 2008, Routledge, , 9781134113163 * Paine, Robert Treat, in: Paine, R. T. & Soper A, "The Art and Architecture of Japan", Pelican History of Art, 3rd ed 1981, Penguin (now Yale History of Art), * Plesu, Andrei, ''Pittoresque et mélancolie : Une analyse du sentiment de la nature dans la culture européenne'', Somogy éditions d'art, 2007 * Gerald Reitlinger, Reitlinger, Gerald; ''The Economics of Taste, Vol I: The Rise and Fall of Picture Prices 1760-1960, Barrie and Rockliffe, London, 1961 * Sickman, Laurence, in: Sickman L & Soper A, "The Art and Architecture of China", Pelican History of Art, 3rd ed 1971, Penguin (now Yale History of Art), LOC 70-125675 * Silver, Larry, ''Peasant Scenes and Landscapes: The Rise of Pictorial Genres in the Antwerp Art Market'', University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012 * Slive, Seymour; Hoetink, Hendrik Richard, "Jacob van Ruisdael" (Abbeville Press: New York: 1981
Virtual Vault
an online exhibition of Canadian historical art at Library and Archives Canada * Wilton, Andrew; T J Barringer; Tate Britain (Gallery); Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.; Minneapolis Institute of Arts. ''American sublime : landscape painting in the United States, 1820-1880'' (Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press, 2002) * William Watson (sinologist), Watson, William, ''Style in the Arts of China'', 1974, Penguin, * Watson, William, ''The Great Japan Exhibition: Art of the Edo Period 1600–1868'', 1981, Royal Academy of Arts/Weidenfeld & Nicolson * Andrew Wilton & Anne Lyles, ''The Great Age of British Watercolours, 1750–1880'', 1993, Prestel, * Christopher Wood (art historian), Christopher S Wood, Albrecht Altdorfer and the Origins of Landscape, 1993, Reaktion Books, London,


Further reading

*
Büttner, Nils. "Landscape Painting. A History", New/York/London 2006
* * ''The Landscape in Twentieth-Century American Art'', Selections from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rizzoli, NY 1991, . Introduction by Robert Rosenblum, and essays by Lowery Stokes Sims and Lisa Messinger


External links


History of European landscape painting
from the National Gallery of Art {{Authority control Landscape painting,