Isabella Flores
Landscape paintings have been a subject of interest for centuries, with artists capturing the beauty of nature and people's interactions with it. These paintings can vary in scale, from small intimate canvases to enormous works that showcase grand scenes. The latter, often referred to as large landscape paintings, have a unique ability to immerse viewers in vast open spaces, dramatic skies, and intricate details. They invite viewers to contemplate the beauty of nature, the interplay of light and shadow, and the emotions evoked by these majestic scenes. The history of large landscape paintings can be traced back to ancient times, with artists like Shen Zhou, Cai Han, and Jin Xiaozhu creating scrolls of enormous length to depict natural and man-made environments. In the West, history paintings often incorporated extensive landscape backgrounds, and artists like Albert Bierstadt and Edgar Payne are renowned for their grandiose depictions of the American West and towering mountains. These large landscape paintings continue to captivate audiences, offering a window into the beauty of nature and a unique artistic perspective on the world.
| Characteristics | Values |
|---|---|
| Genre | Landscape painting |
| Theme | Historical painting, portraiture, still life |
| Period | German Romanticism, Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Dutch Golden Age, Italian and French marinescapes, etc. |
| Artists | Katsushika Hokusai, Caspar David Friedrich, John Constable, Ivan Shishkin, Konstantin Savitsky, Vincent Willem Van Gogh, Jan Van Goyen, Albert Bierstadt, Edgar Payne, Compton, etc. |
| Style | Realism, subtle realist techniques, dramatic lighting effects, vibrant colours, loose brushwork, etc. |
| Scenes | Mountains, forests, cliffs, fields, cities, seas, deserts, etc. |
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What You'll Learn
Landscape painting in the West
The word "landscape" entered the English language in the 17th century, purely as a term for works of art. Landscape painting, as a genre, did not emerge in Western art until the Renaissance period, when it started as a background for the subjects in focus.
From the Renaissance until the advent of modernism, Western painting was dominated by the conventions of fixed-point perspective, a system that enhanced the 'objective' experience of visual mastery. The horizon is usually located low down, as if the landscape is seen from the ground and from a single, standing position. This is in contrast to traditional Korean landscape painting, which depicts very broad views of the scenes, with the horizon high, as if the landscape is viewed from a bird's-eye perspective.
In the West, history painting required an extensive landscape background, and for several centuries, landscapes were promoted to the status of history painting by the addition of small figures to make a narrative scene, typically religious or mythological. In early Western medieval art, interest in landscape disappeared almost entirely, kept alive only in copies of Late Antique works.
In the 18th century, Western American paintings mostly consisted of heroic landscapes, and accuracy wasn't a priority. By the 19th century, the theme centred around cowboys and Native Americans, with the latter heralded as Noble Red Men. As the century came to a close, the scenery changed as Native Americans were defeated and controlled by White settlers. In the 20th century, the Industrial Revolution brought about a more realistic style of the west, with artists like Charles M. Russell and Frederic Remington portraying the lives of cowboys and soldiers.
Landscape painting illustrates open spaces and natural scenery like mountains, canyons, forests, valleys, lakes, and rivers. Some paintings may include people and man-made structures, while others may not. They offer a wide view of the scenery and generally focus on the sky.
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Landscape painting in East Asia
For over a thousand years, the most admired works of art in China and Korea have reflected a deep appreciation of nature. While the subjects of East Asian secular paintings are diverse—ranging from landscapes to flora and fauna, figures, and narrative scenes—landscape paintings have traditionally been given pride of place. The term for landscape painting in East Asia translates as "mountains and water" (Chinese: shanshui; Korean: sansu; Japanese: sansui)—a fitting moniker for a genre that always features these two elements. Whether real locations or imagined settings, painted landscapes evoke the experience of being in nature and offer an escape from the hardships of urban living.
During the Song dynasty (960–1279), naturalistic depiction was the primary goal of Chinese painting. By the late Tang dynasty, landscape painting often embodied the universal longing of cultivated men to escape their quotidian world and commune with nature. As the Tang dynasty disintegrated, the concept of withdrawal into nature became a major thematic focus of poets and painters. During the Yuan dynasty (1279–1368), literati painters—scholar-gentlemen who had mastered the art of the calligraphic brush—denounced the highly polished, conventionally realistic works of professional artists, instead exalting the expressive value of brushwork.
The works of court painter Li Sixun (653–718) and his son Li Zhaodao (early 8th century) were highly decorative and meticulous, employing precise line techniques derived from earlier artists such as Gu Kaizhi (348–409) and Zhan Ziqian (ca. 550–604). They often used mineral colours blue and green for decoration, so their genre of painting is known as "blue-green landscape" (qinglü shanshui). Another school of landscape painting was founded by the poet-painter Wang Wei (701–761), who painted in ink monochrome and developed a more spontaneous technique called pomo ("broken ink"), using varying shades of ink washes.
During the Ming (1368–1644) and Qing (1644–1911) dynasties, landscape paintings by court painters and professional artists achieved an impressive level of topographic realism. Meanwhile, influential literati artists and art critics continued to promote the ideal of landscape painting as an expression of the artist’s learning, ethics, and personality. This concept also gained popularity in Korea during the Chosŏn dynasty (1392–1910) and within certain schools of Japanese art during the Edo period (1615–1868).
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The Hudson River School
The themes of the Hudson River School reflected three themes of 19th-century America: discovery, exploration, and settlement. Their paintings depicted the American landscape as a pastoral setting, where human beings and nature coexist peacefully. The landscapes were often very large, reminding Americans of the vast, untamed, and magnificent wilderness areas in their country. The Hudson River School artists believed that nature in the form of the American landscape was a reflection of God.
The second generation of Hudson River School artists emerged after Cole's death in 1848. This group included Cole's prize pupil, Frederic Edwin Church, John Frederick Kensett, and Sanford Robinson Gifford. Church and Albert Bierstadt were the most successful painters of the school. They were influenced by the Düsseldorf school of painting, and their epic landscapes reminded Americans of the vast wilderness areas of their country.
Several women were associated with the Hudson River School, including Susie M. Barstow, an avid mountain climber who painted the mountain scenery of the Catskills and the White Mountains, and Eliza Pratt Greatorex, an Irish-born painter who was the second woman elected to the National Academy of Design. The Hudson River School declined after the Civil War, as the aesthetic orientation of the United States shifted from Great Britain to France, and the appeal of figure painting grew at the expense of landscape painting.
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Land Art
The term "landscape" was introduced to the English language around the 17th century, purely as a term for works of art. Landscape paintings have evolved over the years, with different styles and periods, and sub-genres of marine and animal painting, as well as distinct styles like Italianate landscape. One particular style of landscape painting is panoramic painting, which involves artists travelling to sites and sketching scenes multiple times. These sketches are then used to create enormous paintings that offer a comprehensive view of the world from a focal height.
One of the most famous land artists is Robert Smithson, whose 1968 essay "The Sedimentation of the Mind: Earth Projects" provided a critical framework for the movement. His most famous piece, and arguably the most famous piece of all land art, is the Spiral Jetty (1970). For this work, Smithson arranged rocks, earth, and algae to form a 1,500-foot-long spiral-shaped jetty protruding into the Great Salt Lake in northern Utah.
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Panoramic painting
The word "panorama" was coined by Irish painter Robert Barker in 1787. It is a portmanteau of the Greek words 'pano' (all) and 'horama' (view). Barker's vision was to capture the magnificence of a scene from every angle, immersing the viewer completely. His first panorama was of Edinburgh, exhibited in his house in 1788, and later in Archers' Hall near the Meadows to public acclaim. To create a panorama, artists travelled to sites and sketched the scenes multiple times. A team of artists typically worked on one project, each specializing in a certain aspect of the painting, such as landscapes, people, or skies.
In China, panoramic paintings are an important subset of handscroll paintings, with famous examples including Along the River During the Qingming Festival and Ten Thousand Miles of the Yangtze River. In the West, history painting required an extensive landscape background, and landscapes were promoted to the status of history painting through the addition of small figures to create a narrative scene, often religious or mythological. Dutch Golden Age painting in the 17th century saw the dramatic growth of landscape painting, with artists specializing in subtle realist techniques for depicting light and weather.
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Frequently asked questions
Those are landscape paintings, a genre of art that became established in its own right during the 17th century.
Some famous landscape paintings include:
- *The Great Wave Off Kanagawa* by Katsushika Hokusai
- *Wheatfield with Crows* by Vincent Willem Van Gogh
- *Morning in a Pine Forest* by Ivan Shishkin and Konstantin Savitsky
- *The Cycle of 4 Seasons* by Nicolas Poussin
- *View of Arles with Irises* by Vincent van Gogh
Landscape paintings often showcase natural features such as mountains, trees, rivers, cliffs, and forests. They can also include human-made structures like cities, gardens, and boats. Some landscape paintings are populated by people and animals, while others are "pure landscapes" devoid of any human figures.
