Course work: Resumed the sketchbook walk interrupted by rain yesterday: today’s weather fine and clear. Did three more sketches.
Research Point concerning artist’s depictions of landscapes: Paleolithic artists, despite their skill in depicting animals, do not appear to have included landscape elements in their work. The Neolithic ceramicists and stone carvers likewise neglected landscape in favor of human and animal figures, and pure design. The earliest landscape elements I found in my research were grass and flowers in the background of an Egyptian painting of some geese done ca. 2550 B.C.E. Symbols representing palm trees are also a frequent feature in Egyptian art. Some examples of Mycenaean goldware dating from about 1475 B.C.E. included highly stylized trees as background elements. Etruscan tomb paintings, ceramics, and metalware of around 475 B.C.E. depicted stylized landscape elements, predominately trees and shrubs. Most Roman paintings and mosaics that have survived which included trees, plants, or flowers did so with little other reason than to provide a background for figural work, or to serve as pure decoration. However, excavations at Pompeii revealed a number of paintings in which the landscape itself was the subject.
Chinese landscape painting had emerged by about 600 A.D., and its style and technique have changed remarkably little over the ensuing centuries: although landscape features follow stylistic rules, the paintings appear far more realistic than European work of the same era. Japanese painting followed Chinese styles fairly closely in the earlier years, with some divergence in more recent times.
The Americas produced virtually nothing in the way of landscape art in the pre-colonial era, despite remarkable expertise in painting and carving human and animal representations. The Maya were the most prolific painters in the pre-colonial Americas: an examination of photographs of 93 pieces of Mayan polychrome ceramic ware showed two symbolic depictions of the “tree of life” and one highly stylized representation of the cave thought to be the entrance to the underworld, but nothing else that could be considered a landscape feature.
European landscape painting of the Medieval and early Renaissance eras was seldom more than “filler” in the background of a figural work, usually religious in nature. The buildings, trees, mountains, and ships depicted were often drawn either from the artist’s observations of his own surroundings, from his imagination, or both, thus anachronism is very common in these paintings. As knowledge of perspective began to spread, works were produced in which the foreground and middle ground appeared quite natural, but the landscape elements in the background were the same old symbols long in use. It is possible that some of this background work was done by apprentices, which would explain the foreground-background disparity.
Later in the Renaissance, landscape painting began to emerge as a genre worthwhile in itself, not just as a decorative addition to figurative work. The strange imagined landscapes of Bosch still intrigue and perplex us. Leonardo da Vinci painted natural-appearing landscape elements, though these were still primarily background for figurative work. Giorgione and Bellini both produced some works in which the landscape was a more important element than the included figures, although religious work still constituted the majority of their output.
Following the Reformation, the demand for religious painting decreased, especially in northern Europe, and painters turned to other subjects, one of which was landscape. Dutch 17th century painters included a number of gifted landscape painters (even more if one includes the painters of seascapes and cityscapes). Perhaps the greatest of these was Jacob van Ruisdael, whose largely-invented landscapes nevertheless convey the feeling of having been painted on site. He makes no attempt at simplification: it seems that every leaf on every tree must be painted. His skies are particularly convincing. Aelbert Cuyp and Meyndert Hobbema also produced landscapes that exhibit the attention to detail and the dramatic lighting so often seen in Dutch paintings of this era.
The Rococo period, from about 1700-1760, used landscape primarily as a stage setting for people enjoying themselves. The movement was especially strong in France, where Antoine Watteau and Jean-Honore Fragonard were major figures, although
Watteau painted far more pictures employing landscape. This landscape was often simplified and stylized. Thomas Gainsborough and to a lesser extent Sir Joshua Reynolds painted in what one could call an English Rococo style, with landscape elements a little more realistic (and people a little more serious in demeanor) than the French works. Giovanni Battista Tiepolo represented the movement in Italy.
Academism had a long history as a movement, overlapping the Baroque and Rococo eras, and extending beyond them; it now seems to be making a rather strong comeback. This movement was strongly oriented toward accurate drawing and representation of classical ideals. Sir Joshua Reynolds and George Stubbs were major English exemplars: Stubbs’ background landscapes seem almost as important as his subjects. The French Academic movement was particularly strong, though it was carried to extremes and led to stagnation. Many of the Academic painters could also be considered Neo-classicists, although Neo-classicists as a group had relatively little interest in the landscape for itself.
The 19th century brought new schools of painting, and a new efflorescence of interest in the landscape. Many of the Romantic painters were landscape painters, including perhaps the greatest of them all, J.M. W Turner, whose work progressed over the years from fairly straightforward landscapes to romantic landscapes to those great later works which in my opinion should be regarded as the first and perhaps the purest examples of Impressionism.
The American Hudson River School produced highly detailed and dramatically illuminated landscapes, first of the Hudson River Valley, later of many American wilderness areas, and eventually of other parts of the world.
The Pre-Raphaelites had a strong interest in naturalistic detail, which often led to striking landscapes, usually as a setting for figural work, although John William Inchbold excelled at pure landscapes.
The Impressionist school emerged strongly in France about 1860, spread rapidly across the world, and persists to a considerable extent today. Impressionist painters were (and are) strongly interested in light and color, and less interested in detail, tonal differences, or precise rendition.
A wide variety of new schools of painting emerged in the 20th century. Many of these not only rejected landscape as a valid subject, but rejected realism altogether. Nevertheless, many painters continued to produce landscape work, often ignored by the critics and the major galleries. Edward Hopper comes immediately to mind, described as the “painter of loneliness.” His work has a great deal in common with that of Laurence Lowry in that both considered people more as decorations for cityscapes than vice versa. Among contemporary painters who often paint landscapes, the names Trevor Chamberlain and Ken Howard come to mind.
The landscape continues to attract both the professional and the amateur painter, and landscapes continue to be appreciated by those who can decide for themselves what constitutes good painting. Long may it be so.
Major references:
(No author or editor cited) 30,000 Years of Art
Phaidon Press, Ltd, London, 2007
E.H. Gombrich, The Story of Art
Phaidon press Limited, Oxford 1978
Dorie Reents-Budet Painting the Maya Universe: Royal Ceramics of the Classic Period Duke University Press, Durham, NC, USA, 1994
Peter and Linda Murray The Art of the Renaissance
Thames and Hudson, London, 1963
Rose-Marie & Ranier Hagen What Great Paintings Say (Vols. 1 & 2)
Taschen, Köln, 2005
Christopher Brown Dutch Painting
Phaidon Press Limited, London, 1976
Ian Warrell (Ed.) J.M.W. Turner
Tate Publishing, London, 2007
Louise Minks The Hudson River School
Barnes and Noble Books, New York, 2005
Sandra Forty The Pre-Raphaelites
Barnes and Noble Books, New York, 1997
Richard R. Brettell Impression: Painting Quickly in France 1860-1890
Yale University Press, New Haven, Connecticut, USA, 2000
Walter Wells Silent Theater: The Art of Edward Hopper
Phaidon Press Limited, London, 2007
(Reference on Laurence Lowry) http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/350046/L-S-Lowry
Online museum:
http://www.artrenewalcom/index.php
Reading:
Rose-Marie & Ranier Hagen What Great Paintings Say (Vol. 1)
Taschen, Köln, 2005
Pp 266-271
Personal sketchbook work: A drawing of a wooden kitchen spoon.
Total time: 1 hour 56 minutes
