Landscape Art
Posted: Monday, May 10, 2010
by Peter Dranitsin
Petes Original Art Inc.
Landscape art, often painted on canvas, is the depiction of natural scenery like mountains, valleys, trees, rivers, and forests. The main subject of the painting is a wide view, with its elements arranged into a coherent composition. Although the scenery may not be the main focus of the painting, landscape backgrounds for the objects and figures can still be an important part.
Early landscapes were of imaginary scenes, although townscape views represented actual cities, with varying degrees of accuracy. Various techniques were used to simulate the randomness of natural forms in invented compositions. Degas, for example, created cloud forms from a crumpled handkerchief held up against the light, and Alexander Cozens used random ink blots to form the basic shape of an invented landscape, which he elaborated upon.
Most experts believe that "The Miraculous Draught of Fishes," painted by Konrad Witz in 1444, is the first Western rural landscape. It had a distinctive background view across Lake Geneva to the Le Mle peak. At first, artists would make drawings and watercolor sketches of natural settings, and then take them inside to do the actual painting. Painting en plein air, or outside, didn't become widely practiced until the 1870s, when ready-mixed oil paints in tubes and the portable box easel became available. The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood also made a point to encourage it among artists.
It took a while in the history of art for landscapes to become a popular, established subject matter. Before the 1700s, landscape paintings were considered lower in status than portraiture, which patrons tended to value more. Most paintings that depicted things that occurred outside in nature didn't focus on the nature itself, but on some event that happened there or on individuals or still-life. The nature was a backdrop, and not the focus on the painting.
Landscape painting goes all the way back to the 8th century in China, where there's a strong tradition of shan shui ("mountain-water"), an ink painting consisting of a "pure" landscape. The only sign of life in these paintings is a single sage, or a glimpse of his hut. Landscape backgrounds became more and more sophisticated in China as the centuries went by, until it became a classic and much-imitated form of art. Most of time Chinese landscape painting, like in Roman times, consisted of grand panoramas of imaginary scenes, usually backed with a range of spectacular mountains.
It takes a great deal of technical expertise to paint a good landscape. Perhaps the reason for that is that artists have to capture a three-dimensional view on a two-dimensional space. The challenges of perspective, color, and composition had to be overcome. When they were, mostly due to the innovation and creativity of the artists, it became an important genre in its own right.
Peter Dranitsin is a self taught and self representing artist. He grew up in the family where his mother a professional artist and his father a professional photographer. To learn more about landscape art please visit my online art gallery at http://www.petesoriginalart.com.
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