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Wednesday, October 9, 2013

An Introduction To Famous Landscape Painters

By Angel Dudley


An interesting painting can brighten up any drab-looking room and get your guests talking. If you want to be able to look at a painting and be spirited away to another place and time as well, you can't go wrong with paintings of landscapes, whether these are of familiar or exotic places. Through the ages, famous landscape painters have managed to inspire dreams of faraway places with their work.

While portraits and still lives show the subject up close, a landscape painting normally shows a panoramic view. Landscapes often depict scenes from nature, for instance mountains or lakes. They may show humans in the distance or structures like roads or houses that show the presence of people. The sky sets the tone by telling you what time of day it is and what the weather is like.

Landscapes have been inspiring artists since the earliest times. Early murals often depict scenes of people hunting in the wild, with mountains and rivers in the background. The ancient Romans often painted imaginary places that represented their idea of paradise. The Chinese did the same and often still do.

Not many artists painted landscapes during the Middle Ages, when religious subjects were all the rage. As this era drew to a close, however, artists started looking at the world around them and painted it. By the time of the Golden Age of Dutch painting in around the 1600s, many artists preferred painting landscapes. Esaias van de Velde, Aelbert Cuyp, Jacob van Ruisdael, Jan van Goyen and Pieter de Molyn were some of the foremost painters in the genre. Some Dutch artists lived and worked in England and Anthony van Dyck is often credited as the one who took the genre to the British Isles. There John Constable, Samuel Palmer, JMW Turner and other English artists perfected the tradition.

In the New World, unexplored territories meant that there were pristine and dramatic landscapes to depict on canvas. Thomas Cole sailed up the Hudson River in the early 19th century and his paintings of the Catskills area started the Hundson River School. Asher Durand, Albert Bierstadt, Frederic Edwin Church and John Frederick Kensett became some of the most celebrated artists of the time.

Not all famous landscapes were painted by artists specializing in the genre. 'View of Arco', for instance, is a watercolor done by Albrecht Durer, best known for his religious paintings and engravings. Vincent van Gogh's dreamy 'The Starry Night' and broody 'Wheatfield with Crows' were very different from the portraits and still lives he usually tended to paint. Georgia O'Keeffe's New Mexico scenes are among her best work.

The best place to try and find landscapes by big-name artists is to attend art auctions. Some galleries may also have a few of these paintings for sale. Unfortunately you need about a million dollars or more if you want to own one of these pieces.

If your budget is more modest, buying a print of an original painting is a good option. You can get prints of works by famous landscape painters from galleries or online. The museum shops at art museums also have prints of the works they display and these look wonderful when framed.




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