After the thousands of years of iteration the art of painting has developed in many types. Every type has its own method, purpose and style. Here we are going to talk about the Landscape Painting.
What is it?
Landscape painting is one of the prominent types of painting. As it name tells, it is depiction of natural scenery like mountains, sky, rivers, trees, etc. in well-composed manner. In most cases, sky and weather are the key factors. Artist tries to create a mood or theme by these two elements. Like, red blooded sky and gloomy environment in well-known painting The Scream, generates an awful feel. While by using these two elements, Jacob van Ruisdael has created very beautiful scenery in his work The Windmill at Wijk bij Duurstede.
Basically, in landscape painting artist just represents the natural environment in his own style and composition which befits his mind.
Landscape painting has its roots in the era of the cave-paintings. That time people used to draw on the cave walls. In those, cave-paintings there are some composited paintings of natural elements like sun, river, trees and mountains. Historians count them as the first landscape paintings.
After that, as the human civilization iterated more and more, in different cultures there were different kinds of paintings. Chinese had their “Shan-shui (mountain-water)” while the Greeks drew frescos about hunting.
After human civilization advanced even further, we had the two parts of paintings western and eastern. After 15th century, in western tradition there was a big push in landscape paintings by Leonardo da Vinci, Albrecht Durer, Fra Bartolomeo and others. it was the beginning era of pure landscape paintings. After the success of Frans Post in early 17th century, popularity of landscape scenes grew.
In eastern tradition, china is the leading region in the art of landscape paintings. Landscape painting has been called “china’s greatest contribution to the art of the world”. Japan is also a contributor in this section. But basically, they adapted the Chinese traditions. They used draw landscapes on partitions.
In modern times, landscape painting has become a popular subject as people can travel different countries for breath taking natural sceneries to get inspire from.
Famous paintings and painters
We could count some famous painters in the list of landscape artists. JMW Turner, George Inness, Claude Monet and Horace Pippin are some of the most famous landscape artist of all time. Their breathtaking portrayal of natural beauty keeps people gazing at their artworks.
In the list of famous landscape paintings, A View of Mount Pilatus by Robert Zund, Tree with Crows by Casper David Friedrich, In the mountains by Albert Bierstadt, On the Banks of the Bosphorus by Felix Ziem etc. are well-known works.
In modern times, landscape paintings attraction has grown tremendously. Because of the traveling convenient traveling facilities, artists visit various and most beautiful places on earth to get inspired. Moreover, the traditional painting style of canvas is slowly being replaced by the computer technology as it gives artist more freedom to make mistakes. Though, computer generated art-pieces are not main-stream yet. There is much love for the traditional techniques of paintings.
After this long talk, we can definitely say that landscape painting is not a minor section of painting anymore. There are special landscape paintings based exhibitions are being held in various cities of the world. It shows the importance and prominence of this segment of paintings.