|
Contrary to still life paintings and portraits, landscape paintings never fail to excite people. We normally strike an emotional connection with landscape paintings as more often than not they arouse nostalgic feelings. Somewhere down memory lane we identify some of our own visual experiences with the landscape paintings we see.
Landscape paintings have been part of many cultures and landscape artists have enjoyed a place of pride in traditions of countries like Britain, Japan, France, and Holland,
Paintings of landscape artists are more suited to brighten up walls. The originals are pretty expensive and the only way that you can adorn your walls with the paintings of great landscape artists like Camille Pissaro, John Constable, or Claude Monet is by buying their reproductions.
Before the time of the Impressionists landscape artists painted from memory or drawings, from consigns of their studios. Monet and Renoir were the first to move out in the open to get inspiration from Nature to paint and had to suffer the ridicule of the masters.
Hiroshige (1797-1858) and Hokusai (1760-1849) of Japan painted wild oceans, forests and mountain ranges in bright colors and left a great impression on the landscape artists of 19th Century Europe. The later Twentieth Century saw the emergence of other forms of art in the shape of
Surrealism, Cubism and Abstract Expressionism that drove the landscape artist into the sidelines.
Despite the current trend of video art and installations, the works of the landscape artist are still fancied by the general public because of their inherent quality of bringing the Nature within your home.
Landscape artists have been known to go to great lengths to paint pictures as realistically as they possible. In an effort to capture the same mountain in different weather conditions, the landscape artist, Paul Cezanne, painted the same mountain, Montagne Sainte Victoire, near his home in Aix-en-Provence, France, nearly eighty times. Monet depicted water by sitting in a rowing boat on the river.
As with mountains, so with sky and water, and landscape artists painted the sky and water as frequently as they did the mountains. The first European landscape artists to paint the sea were the Dutch painters Vermeer (1632-1675), and Rembrandt (1606-1669).
The blurring of the sea and the horizon that the English landscape artist, JMW Turner used in his paintings of stormy skies and seascapes gave the idea of abstract painting to the future artists.
Winslow Homer and Andrew Wyeth, both American landscape artists, captured light on water beautifully and earned accolades for their mastery on painting this aspect nature.
|
Rate This Article
Add Comments
Send To Friends
Print 
Download as PDF
