landscape art essay

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Art of Asia

Course: art of asia   >   unit 2.

• Song dynasty (960–1279), an introduction
• The art of salvation—Mt. Baoding, Dazu rock carvings
• An Introduction to the Song dynasty (960–1279)
• Master of the (Fishing) Nets Garden
• Gu Kaizhi, Nymph of the Luo River

Chinese landscape painting

• Mountings: hanging scrolls, handscrolls, fans and the album leaf
• Neo-Confucianism & Fan Kuan, Travelers by Streams and Mountains
• Emperor Huizong, Auspicious Cranes, handscroll
• Attributed to Zhang Zeduan, Along the River during Qingming Festival, handscroll
• Liang Kai, Poet Strolling by a Marshy Bank
• Liang Kai (attributed), White Egret
• Ding ware bowl, Northern Song dynasty
• Ceramic pillow
• Guan ware long-necked vase
• Bowl with “oil spot” glaze
• Bowl with brown mottling
• Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara (Chinese: Guanyin)
• Arhat (Chinese: luohan)
• “Bodhisattva of Compassion Seated in Royal Ease”

Idealized landscapes

The scholar's desk, the earliest landscapes, admonitions scroll, landscapes painted on ceramics, 20th century, want to join the conversation.

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Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History Essays

Claude monet (1840–1926).

The Bodmer Oak, Fontainebleau Forest

Claude Monet

Garden at Sainte-Adresse

Regatta at Sainte-Adresse

La Grenouillère

Camille Monet (1847–1879) on a Garden Bench

The Monet Family in Their Garden at Argenteuil

Edouard Manet

Poppy Fields near Argenteuil

The Parc Monceau

View of Vétheuil

The Manneporte near Etretat

Haystacks (Effect of Snow and Sun)

The Four Trees

Rouen Cathedral: The Portal (Sunlight)

Water Lilies

Bridge over a Pond of Water Lilies

The Houses of Parliament (Effect of Fog)

Laura Auricchio Department of Art & Design Studies, Parsons The New School for Design

October 2004

Claude Monet was a key figure in the Impressionist movement that transformed French painting in the second half of the nineteenth century. Throughout his long career, Monet consistently depicted the landscape and leisure activities of Paris and its environs as well as the Normandy coast. He led the way to twentieth-century modernism by developing a unique style that strove to capture on canvas the very act of perceiving nature.

Raised in Normandy, Monet was introduced to plein-air painting by Eugène Boudin ( 2003.20.2 ), known for paintings of the resorts that dotted the region’s Channel coast, and subsequently studied informally with the Dutch landscapist Johan Jongkind (1819–1891). When he was twenty-two, Monet joined the Paris studio of the academic history painter Charles Gleyre. His classmates included Auguste Renoir , Frédéric Bazille, and other future Impressionists. Monet enjoyed limited success in these early years, with a handful of landscapes, seascapes, and portraits accepted for exhibition at the annual Salons of the 1860s. Yet rejection of many of his more ambitious works, notably the large-scale Women in the Garden (1866; Musée d’Orsay, Paris ), inspired Monet to join with Edgar Degas , Édouard Manet , Camille Pissarro, Renoir, and others in establishing an independent exhibition in 1874. Impression, Sunrise (1873; Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris), one of Monet’s contributions to this exhibition, drew particular scorn for the unfinished appearance of its loose handling and indistinct forms. Yet the artists saw the criticism as a badge of honor, and subsequently called themselves “Impressionists” after the painting’s title, even though the name was first used derisively.

Monet found subjects in his immediate surroundings, as he painted the people and places he knew best. His first wife, Camille ( 2002.62.1 ), and his second wife, Alice, frequently served as models. His landscapes chart journeys around the north of France ( 31.67.11 ) and to London, where he escaped the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71. Returning to France, Monet moved first to Argenteuil, just fifteen minutes from Paris by train, then west to Vétheuil, Poissy, and finally to the more rural Giverny in 1883. His homes and gardens became gathering places for friends, including Manet and Renoir , who often painted alongside their host ( 1976.201.14 ). Yet Monet’s paintings cast a surprisingly objective eye on these scenes, which include few signs of domestic relations.

Following in the path of the Barbizon painters , who had set up their easels in the Fontainebleau Forest ( 64.210 ) earlier in the century, Monet adopted and extended their commitment to close observation and naturalistic representation. Whereas the Barbizon artists painted only preliminary sketches en plein air , Monet often worked directly on large-scale canvases out of doors, then reworked and completed them in his studio. His quest to capture nature more accurately also prompted him to reject European conventions governing composition, color, and perspective. Influenced by Japanese woodblock prints , Monet’s asymmetrical arrangements of forms emphasized their two-dimensional surfaces by eliminating linear perspective and abandoning three-dimensional modeling. He brought a vibrant brightness to his works by using unmediated colors, adding a range of tones to his shadows, and preparing canvases with light-colored primers instead of the dark grounds used in traditional landscape paintings.

Monet’s interest in recording perceptual processes reached its apogee in his series paintings (e.g., Haystacks [1891], Poplars [1892], Rouen Cathedral [1894]) that dominate his output in the 1890s. In each series, Monet painted the same site again and again, recording how its appearance changed with the time of day. Light and shadow seem as substantial as stone in his Rouen Cathedral ( 30.95.250 ) series. Monet reports that he rented a room across from the cathedral’s western facade in 1892 and 1893, where he kept multiple canvases in process and moved from one to the next as the light shifted. In 1894, he reworked the canvases to their finished states.

In the 1910s and 1920s, Monet focused almost exclusively on the picturesque water-lily pond ( 1983.532 ) that he created on his property at Giverny. His final series depicts the pond in a set of mural-sized canvases where abstract renderings of plant and water emerge from broad strokes of color and intricately built-up textures. Shortly after Monet died (a wealthy and well-respected man at the age of eighty-six), the French government installed his last water-lily series in specially constructed galleries at the Orangerie in Paris, where they remain today.

Auricchio, Laura. “Claude Monet (1840–1926).” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History . New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/cmon/hd_cmon.htm (October 2004)

Further Reading

House, John. Monet: Nature into Art . New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986.

Tucker, Paul Hayes. Claude Monet: Life and Art . New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995.

Additional Essays by Laura Auricchio

• Auricchio, Laura. “ The Transformation of Landscape Painting in France .” (October 2004)
• Auricchio, Laura. “ Eighteenth-Century Women Painters in France .” (October 2004)
• Auricchio, Laura. “ The Nabis and Decorative Painting .” (October 2004)

Related Essays

• American Impressionism
• Edgar Degas (1834–1917): Painting and Drawing
• Édouard Manet (1832–1883)
• Impressionism: Art and Modernity
• The Transformation of Landscape Painting in France
• The Aesthetic of the Sketch in Nineteenth-Century France
• Auguste Renoir (1841–1919)
• Auguste Rodin (1840–1917)
• The Barbizon School: French Painters of Nature
• Childe Hassam (1859–1935)
• Frans Hals (1582/83–1666)
• Georges Seurat (1859–1891) and Neo-Impressionism
• Gustave Courbet (1819–1877)
• Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864–1901)
• James McNeill Whistler (1834–1903)
• John Singer Sargent (1856–1925)
• The Nabis and Decorative Painting
• Nadar (1820–1910)
• Nineteenth-Century French Realism
• Paul Cézanne (1839–1906)
• The Salon and the Royal Academy in the Nineteenth Century
• Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890)

List of Rulers

• List of Rulers of Europe
• France, 1800–1900 A.D.
• France, 1900 A.D.–present
• 19th Century A.D.
• Arboreal Landscape
• Architecture
• Barbizon School
• Floral Motif
• Impressionism
• Oil on Canvas
• Preparatory Study
• Printmaking
• School of Fontainebleau

Artist or Maker

• Boudin, Eugène
• Degas, Edgar
• Jongkind, Johan Barthold
• Manet, Édouard
• Monet, Claude
• Pissarro, Camille
• Renoir, Auguste

Online Features

• The Artist Project: “George Condo on Claude Monet’s The Path through the Irises “
• Connections: “Light” by Bruce Schwarz
• Connections: “Trees” by Daniëlle Kisluk-Grosheide

10 minute read

Landscape in the Arts

Landscape east and west.

Expanding the art historian Benjamin Rowland's now classic comparative discussions of Art in East and West (1954), we recognize that landscape is not simply a Western idea or artistic theme. Indeed, for Chinese, Korean, and Japanese artists, landscape was a primary artistic motif centuries earlier than in the West, and their religious and cultural attitudes interpreted nature and thereby landscape as an independent topos at least from the early tenth century. Perhaps best represented by the Chinese name, shanshui, or "mountains and water," this Eastern esteem for landscape was predicated upon more than an appreciation or respect for nature, its awesome wonders, and its universal processes; there was also a recognition of the place of humanity within the natural world. It was believed that a retreat or temporary withdrawal from society or "the modern" into a situation permitting contemplation of nature—countryside, mountains, or desert—facilitated a revelation of the ever-present pervasive spirit of the universe. Thus the idea of the landscape was as a retreat for renewal of an individual's mind and refreshment of the spirit. However, this landscape, which had its own life force, was not to be depicted as an illustration, that is line for line, form for form; rather, the real essence of the landscape was to be captured in a style prophetic of "the romantic." The distinction is simply understood if the Greek signifies the West and the Chinese the East. Where the A visual harmony of tones and forms. Old Battersea Bridge (1872–1875) by James Abbott McNeill Whistler . Oil on canvas. TATE GALLERY , L ONDON . © THE ART ARCHIVE Greek sought the personification (or anthropomorphization) of a grove or a tree, the Chinese saw a manifestation of the divine through the labors of the universal spirit.

Consider, for example, the renowned Chinese shanshui of Sage Contemplating the Moon by Ma Yüan (1200; Kuroda Collection, Tokyo), in which the economy of line and classic asymmetrical composition extends an invitation to the viewer to participate in the quietude and meditation of the reclining sage entranced within his contemplation of the vast emptiness before him and the singular present of the full moon. A potential Western conversation partner is Caspar David Friedrich's romantic vision of Two Men Contemplating the Moon (c. 1830; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York). As beautiful a visual recording of this mysterious partnership between the two men and nature is, and as carefully as the viewer is invited through the painterly convention of interlocuter figures to participate in this experience, the visual differences between the Eastern and Western images are telling and help the viewer to recognize the cultural distinctions in the idea of landscape. Both paintings express the emotive power of the human connection with nature and the spirituality of this relationship. Both paintings could be classified within the Western category of romantic, with their soft edged forms, artistic focus on the evocation of mood, and presentation of nature mysticism.

Flatness of landscape, figures, and fireworks. Fireworks at Ryōgoku Bridge (mid-nineteenth century) by Hiroshige . © C HRISTIE'S I MAGES /C ORBIS

However, Friedrich designed a series of internal spatial connectives between the mountainous foreground, the evergreen and gnarled empty trees, the distant mountainscape, and the two men that so clutter the canvas as to obscure the focus on the moon and thereby of the spiritual potential of nature. Further, his inclusion of two men who appear almost as partners in physical stature and social position suggests a common search for, and thereby discussion and explication of, the meaning of this encounter. Alternatively, Ma Yüan offers a simpler, more restrained vision of a mountainous landscape that includes a distorted gnarled tree and two men. However, these two men are separated not simply by the internal topographical barrier of a small mountain but also by their own physical size and social status. There is no internal conspiracy between them; rather, the sage and the boatman contemplate, each in his own way, the mystery and spiritual power of nature—the sage by concentrating on the moon, the boatman on the mountain. The large internal space given over by the artist to the void provides a sense of both the monumental vastness of the night sky and the place of the human within the context of the natural world. Further, this void provides a space in which the viewer, like the contemplative sage, can write her own story. One additional Mountains surreal, yet geologically precise. The Virgin of the Rocks (c. 1483) by Leonardo da Vinci . Oil on wood. © NATIONAL GALLERY COLLECTION . R EPRODUCED BY KIND PERMISSION OF THE T RUSTEES OF THE NATIONAL GALLERY, LONDON/CORBIS and perhaps ironic difference to note is that Friedrich employs a horizontal canvas and Ma Yüan a vertical one. Normally the former would be described as accessing the aesthetics of immanence and the latter the aesthetics of transcendence. However, this is open to debate, as these two paintings create internal attitudes toward the relationships of humanity with nature and of the human with the spirit.

Reversing the horizontal and vertical references is another comparison of Eastern and Western romantic views of landscape in James Abbott McNeill Whistler's Old Battersea Bridge (1872–1875; Tate Gallery, London) and Hiroshige's Fireworks at Ryūgoku Bridge (1858; Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, Mass.). Perhaps this visual consideration of the universal elements of landscape is enhanced by the fact that the American expatriate painter had seen, owned, and was influenced by Japanese woodblock prints such as Hiroshige's prior to his painting of the Old Battersea Bridge. Japonisme swept through Paris, especially among the artistic circles Whistler frequented, beginning in the late 1850s and reaching a fervor in the An interplay of vertical and horizontal forms. Mont Sainte-Victoire (1902–1904) by Paul Cézanne . Oil on canvas. PUSHKIN MUSEUM , M OSCOW , R USSIA . © ALEXANDER BURKATOWSKI / CORBIS mid-1860s. Japonisme was a major influence on the development of both Impressionism and the art for art's sake movement. Whistler, foremost among all his Impressionist, symbolist, and art for art's sake colleagues, was affected by the visual principles and religio-aesthetics of Japan. Although much of the Japanese woodblock art and pottery that entered the European and American markets was made for export, thereby not necessarily within the proper boundaries of theme, design, and execution for a Japanese audience, Whistler had a discerning eye, and his own approach to painting was transformed by the finest among such objects.

Hiroshige's depiction of a summer fireworks display is visualized at early evening when the bridge is covered with diminutive figures who stand above the water and mountains almost like birds looking down on the natural environment. The foreground and background of the print is divided by the vertical lines forming the Ryūgoku Bridge, with the fireworks boats and the boats with passengers viewing the display, almost obliterating the river waters. The bridge also partially obscures a series of mountains and beaches in the background. The falling lights of the fireworks are condensed into a small segment of the night sky, yet again diffused by the bridge. The internal tonal arrangement of soft, neutral colors works in tandem with the complex patterning of lines and curves to create on first glance an abstract pattern distinguished by the character of "flatness." The details of the fireworks, the varied audiences, and even parts of the natural environment became homologous elements in the visual pattern of colors and forms. A work such as Hiroshige's requires careful looking, as the first glance suggests an unpopulated landscape.

Whistler's painting is even more abstract in its presentation of form and figure. He sought to create a visual harmony of tones and forms that create a mood similar to that evoked in a listener by music, even unto his minimizing of titles to musical parallels: Old Battersea Bridge is among his "Nocturnes." The enchanted garden. Humay and Humayun in a Garden (c. 1430). Manuscript illumination. P HOTO C REDIT : GIRAUDON/ART RESOURCE , NY To attain this effect he minimized the details, colors, forms, and lighting in paintings such as this, which he also distanced from a narrative. Through his presentation of the atmospheric relations of water, earth, and sky in a moment of poetic enchantment, Whistler invites the viewer to contemplation of the spirituality of landscape. However, what Whistler has also created here is a new vision, or perhaps a retrieval, of the classic mode, of the landscape of symbolic potential.

One of the major distinctions between Eastern and Western presentations of the landscape is the void. In the Chinese shanshui (landscape painting) the visual emphasis is as much upon the void as it is upon the sparsity of detailed renderings of botanical and topographical forms. Despite the economy of line, these paintings project the visual effect of nature. The placement of the majority of pictorial imagery left of center balances the void right of center to comprise the traditional asymmetrical composition favored by Chinese, Korean, and Japanese artists. However, the void has multiple roles, including a spiritual threshold for preparation to encounter the universal spirit and an aesthetic invitation to participate in this image of contemplation by painting or writing the viewer's own story in this otherwise empty space. The important socio-political function is clarified when a landscape with an empty poetry hall is contrasted to a landscape with the poetry hall filled in. The texts written into the poetry hall record the thinking of those who have contemplated the image with great care and, when the calligraphy includes seals, those of rank who saw the image in situ. The verses provide the viewer with a recognition of what others have experienced in front of this painting, perhaps as a spiritual guide or entry point for viewers who find images disturbing but words comfortable. Neither of these shanshui is a precise transcription of what this natural vista looks like; each depicts the spirit or essence of this landscape episode in the world of nature.

When these shanshui are compared with Western paintings in which the mountains perform a central, if not dominant, role, it becomes apparent that the fundamental distinction between East and West is in the spiritual and symbolic significance of the idea of landscape. The mountain connotes a variety of Western symbolic references, ranging from the classical Mediterranean "home of the gods" to the Hebraic monumental setting for conversations with Yahweh to the Christian site of transfiguration. The Chinese attitude toward the mountain is also multivalent and ranges from a site for celestial activity to a symbol of permanence and immensity. Shrouded in mist, clouds, or shadows, the mountains dissolve into a delicately splendid form that speaks to the senses rather than the intellect as the essence of the landscape.

Consider, for example, the surrealistic mountain formations found in the art of Leonardo da Vinci, which provide both a form of geological precision and an aura of mystery. His investigations of nature, and thereby his depictions of the landscape, were premised upon careful observation of the natural world and the anatomy of vision. Leonardo captured the rhythm and quiet energy of plants, water, and light. His passion for scientific investigation may have led him to the prominent inclusion of atmospheric blues in his renderings of the landscape, as in The Virgin of the Rocks (c. 1483; The National Gallery, London). The surreal shapes of the background mountains and After the Fall: the earth as a place of exile. October, calendar miniature from Les Très Riches Heures de le Duc de Berri (1413–16) by the Limbourg Brothers . P HOTO C REDIT : RÉUNION DES MUSÉES NATIONAUX /ART RESOURCE , NY surrounding rock distinguish this as a Western landscape premised upon the Greek principle of the personification: visual parallels between the rocks and human figures are evident in the gesturing hands and fingers and other extremities. By contrast, the Chinese strove to present the living spirit that vitalized the mountain in a painterly vision of mystical and lyrical aestheticism.

Paul Cézanne's Mont Sainte-Victoire (1902–1904; Pushkin Museum, Moscow) provides a Western approach to imaging the harmony of and within nature. A technical exercise in the interplay between vertical and horizontal forms, Cézanne's painting is divided into the traditional tripartite foreground, middle ground, and background. However, he creates a new way of understanding this perspectival relationship as his use of line and color moves the viewer's eye back and up toward Mont Sainte-Victoire, which is the object of his gaze. His experiments with brushwork provided him with the skill to create a rapid, loose brush stroke that results in an internal interplay between surface and depth, so that the viewer experiences a sense of perspective, depth, mass, and volume when there isn't any. America as the "new Eden." The Oxbow: The Connecticut River Near Northampton (1836) by Thomas Cole . Oil on canvas. METRO-POLITAN MUSEUM OF ART , N EW Y ORK C ITY . G IFT OF MRS. RUSSELL SAGE . © FRANCIS G. MAYER/CORBIS Nonetheless, his explorations of the vista and monumentality of Mont Sainte-Victoire resulted in a series of regulated and erudite renderings of the landscape far removed from the spiritual attachment to nature fundamental to shanshui.

Additional topics

• Landscape in the Arts - Attitudes Toward The Landscape
• Landscape in the Arts - The Path Toward Landscape
• Other Free Encyclopedias

Science Encyclopedia Science & Philosophy: Kabbalah Mysticism - Types Of Kabbalah to Larynx Landscape in the Arts - The Path Toward Landscape, Landscape East And West, Attitudes Toward The Landscape, Scholarship On The Landscape

Re-Mapping Land Art: Earthworks, Borderlands, Ecology

Nicolás García Uriburu, Coloration of the Grand Canal, Venice , 1968, chromogenic print (Uriburu Foundation collection)

Introduction

Argentine artist Nicolás García Uriburu dyed the Grand Canal of Venice with a vibrant green pigment in 1968. Two years later, American artist Robert Smithson moved some six thousand tons of black basalt rocks into the form of a spiraling coil that juts out from the shore into the waters of the Great Salt Lake in Utah. 

Robert Smithson, Spiral Jetty , 1970, Rozel Point, Great Salt Lake, Utah (photograph taken June 2016)

Both of these works exemplify the radical genre of Land Art—art made in or of the natural environment—which was one among the eclectic array of new artistic  practices that emerged in the mid-to-late twentieth century.

The critic Rosalind Krauss had Smithson’s Spiral Jetty in mind, among others, when she observed in 1979 that:

Over the last ten years rather surprising things have come to be called sculpture. Rosalind Krauss [1]

Krauss referred to some of these new works as “marked sites,” a term that describes an artists’ physical manipulation of a given place so as to create art out of the land itself. However, land is not just a neutral resource, or a blank canvas on which artists simply assert their creative vision. Like a palimpsest , landscapes contain traces of the many historical, cultural, ecological, and personal associations that can give a place a sense of deeper meaning. The desert landscape of the Southwestern United States, for instance, was central to the American Land Art movement of the late 1960s and 70s: artists perceived this region as “remote,” as if empty of human civilization. However, such landscapes have more recently been activated by artists to draw our attention to local Indigenous histories, methods of representing nature that differ from that of the European tradition, or the larger social impacts of the political borders that have been cut across the landscape. In addition, contemporary artists working with landscape imagery often do so to explore matters of ecological concern and worldwide perspectives on climate change. 

This chapter takes an expansive view on the relationship of art, landscape, and nature in the late twentieth century. It asks: How have artists engaged with, represented, and re-mapped the physical environment in ways that are both critical and symbolic of humanity’s complex relationship to the earth? How have these landscapes been “occupied” both in society and in art? How can artists help us to understand hidden or marginalized histories of place, and compel us to be more respectful of the natural, political, and social ecosystems that we inhabit? 

Nancy Holt, Sun Tunnels , 1973–76, concrete, steel, earth, Great Basin Desert, Utah, overall dimensions: 9 ft. 2-1/2 in. x 86 ft. x 53 ft. (2.8 x 26.2 x 16.2 m); length on the diagonal: 86 ft. (26.2 m) (Collection Dia Art Foundation with support from Holt/Smithson Foundation)

Land Art and American Landscape

Artists in the late 1960s and 1970s were drawn to the Southwestern United States, creating monumental earthworks that were carved and constructed across that region’s vast landscapes. American artist Nancy Holt, for instance, placed four concrete cylinders in a cruciform formation in the Great Basin Desert of Northwestern Utah. The cylinders are punctured with holes that align with the movement of constellations across the night sky, revealing connections between the individual body, the earth’s geology, and the vast scale of the cosmos. 

Michael Heizer, Double Negative , 1969, Moapa Valley on Mormon Mesa near Overton, Nevada (MOCA)

Michael Heizer chose not to add elements to nature but rather to subtract: To make his work Double Negative , in 1969, he removed over 200,000 tons of sandstone from Mormon Mesa in Nevada, creating two massive cuts in the earth.

Just like their peers in other 1960s genres, Land artists wanted to bring their work outside of traditional galleries and museums, and to embed art in “real” places and environments. (Despite this critique, institutional support has been key to the production and ongoing maintenance of earthworks). Smithson and his peers were not only responding to their contemporary world, however: They were fascinated with pre-modern, ancient, and non-Western earthworks, from the Pyramids of Giza and the Nazca Lines of Peru to the Great Serpent Mounds of Ohio. While seeking to radically expand the definition of art, Land artists wanted to return a sense of monumentality and site-specificity to contemporary art in ways that had not been demonstrated in hundreds of years, since the ages of soaring Gothic cathedrals, ancient amphitheaters and stelae.

Essays and ideas about Land Art and American landscape

The Case for Land Art: What kind of an art can thrive with such a formidable co-star as Earth?

Robert Smithson, Spiral Jetty : Drought and rain govern when this work of art in Utah’s Great Salt Lake can be seen.

Walter De Maria, The Lightning Field : 400 stainless steel poles in the high desert of New Mexico are the object, but the subject is the sublime.

/ 3 Completed

Borderlands and Occupations

Julie Mehretu, HOWL, eon (I, II) , 2016–17, ink and acrylic on canvas, each 823 x 975.4 cm (SFMOMA)

In her commissioned pair of wall paintings for the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, entitled “HOWL, eon (I, II)” (2017), contemporary artist Julie Mehretu explains that:

There is no such thing as just landscape . Julie Mehretu [2]

Her monumental murals, which condense multiple layers of intersecting and abstracted images, reference the histories of colonialism and occupation that have unfolded across the American landscape, from Manifest Destiny and the displacement of Indigenous societies to abolitionist movements and contemporary protests that have re-claimed public space, such as those associated with the Black Lives Matter movement. Acknowledging the complex politics of landscape and history, this section includes art works that reflect on the numerous ways that the natural environment has been politically or institutionally “occupied.” 

The interdisciplinary collective Postcommodity creates site-specific installations and interventions that critically examine our modern-day institutions and systems through the history and perspectives of Indigenous people. Cristóbal Martínez, Kade L. Twist, and Raven Chacon, “Repellent Fence,” 2015, two-mile-long line of enormous balloons across the Arizona-Sonora border

Many of the works below are specifically attentive to borderlands—the regions across or through which geo-political borders have been imposed. These are sites of division and displacement, but also exchange, encounter, and creative fusion. Artists, including Tanya Aguiñiga and the collective Postcommodity, have engaged with the U.S.-Mexico border in ways that pay homage to those sites’ Indigenous histories and reveal the struggles experienced by those who live around, and seek to cross, such borders. They activate occupied lands using methods ranging from performance and collaboration to sculpture and painting.

Essays and videos about borderlands and occupations

Tanya Aguiñiga, Metabolizing the Border : Binational artist Tanya Aguiñiga pushes the power of art to transform the United States-Mexico border from a site of trauma to a creative space for personal healing and collective expression.

Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Border Tuner:   Lozano-Hemmer embarks on his most ambitious project to date: an enormous intercom system at the border between El Paso and Juárez that allows participants from both sides to speak and listen to each other via radio-enabled searchlights.

Julie Mehretu, HOWL, eon (I, II): Mehretu rethinks American landscape painting by merging its sublime imagery with the harsh realities not depicted.

Richard Misrach, Border Cantos : Photographer Mirach recounts his work, from his early political aspirations in the 1970s to his current series about left-behind artifacts along the U.S.-Mexico border wall.

/ 4 Completed

Settler Colonialism and Indigenous Histories of Place

Settler colonialism is a specific form of political occupation wherein an outside population seeks to displace and re -place the Indigenous inhabitants of a colonized territory. Such histories are foundational to the contemporary formations of countries including the United States, Canada, South Africa, and Australia, among others. Often, colonial-era works of art and literature envision the landscapes of these territories as empty spaces that were free to be settled (or were divinely sanctioned to be occupied, as in the concept of Manifest Destiny ). The histories and cultures of Indigenous peoples were often rendered invisible in this process.

Emily Kame Kngwarreye, Earth’s Creation , 1994, synthetic polymer paint on linen mounted on canvas, four panels (private collection)

In this section are works by contemporary artists who intervene in these narratives and instead represent Indigenous relationships to occupied lands. They include examples such as Edgar Heap of Birds’ site-specific interventions, which identify the First Nations that inhabited the land now known as Arkansas before it was settled by Europeans, or Emily Kame Kngwarreye’s abstract paintings, which are inspired by Aboriginal ritual “dreamings” and have roots in ceremonial sand paintings. Many works utilize, or subvert, Western-style maps—which assert ownership through the definition of geopolitical borders and territories—to not only challenge mainstream narratives surrounding the sovereignty of occupied or colonized places, but also compel us to learn more about alternative ways of knowing and inhabiting these regions and their landscapes.

Essays and videos about settler colonialism and Indigenous histories of place

Dale Harding: “Environment is part of who you are.”

Hock E Aye Vi Edgar Heap of Birds, Native Hosts (Arkansas) : Signs to guide historical understanding.

Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Trade (Gifts for Trading Land with White People) :  Smith created this in 1992, responding to the 500th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’ arrival in North America.

Emily Kame Kngwarreye, Earth’s Creation : The painting documents the lushness of the “green time” that follows periods of heavy rain, and makes use of tropical blues, yellows and greens.

Waterways and Maritime Ecosystems

One of the most pressing issues today is the ecological impact of human industry on earth’s natural environment. Artists have found creative ways to visualize this impact, and compel viewers to be more aware of issues such as pollution, sea level rise, global warming, and sustainability. This section includes the works of artists who take different approaches to emphasizing the fragility of our relationship to waterways and marine ecosystems, in particular making sure that oceans, rivers, lakes, and tributaries are included in our definitions and representations of landscape.

Courtney Leonard, ARTIFICE Ellipse , 2016, coiled micaceous clay with glaze, 5 3/8 x 15 x 7 inches (Newark Museum of Art) © Courtney M. Leonard

In her sculptural practice, Courtney Leonard, a contemporary artist and member of the Shinnecock nation, focuses on the impact of whaling, coastal erosion, and industrialization on Indigenous ways of life as well as marine species in the coastal Northeastern United States. And in site-specific installations crafted from reflective materials like glass marbles and recycled silver, Maya Lin maps out the serpentine networks of rivers, tributaries, and lakes around the world, usually placing special attention on the water systems that are local to the places where her work is sited. Still others are attentive to mythologies, migrations, and narratives surrounding water, such as Ellen Gallagher’s Water Ecstatic , which represents sea creatures while reflecting on the legacy of the Middle Passage.

Essays and videos about waterways and maritime ecosystems

Minerva Cuevas, Crossing of the Rio Bravo : Cuevas painted a bridge across a riverbed that divides Mexico and the United States.

Luchita Hurtado: Hurtado celebrates her first solo exhibition and discusses how her experience of motherhood and her commitment to environmental activism merge in her most recent body of work.

Maya Lin, Silver Upper White River : The river’s brilliant reflections gave shape to this enormous sculpture of silver.

Nicolás García Uriburu, Coloration of the Grand Canal, Venice : García Uriburu’s playful and innovative approach to painting that involved dying the Venice canals green.

Courtney Leonard, ARTIFICE Ellipse : A commentary on an endangered way of life.

Ellen Gallagher, Cutting : Gallagher’s work often appears abstract and minimal, but upon closer inspection details reveal complex narratives that borrow from maritime history, science fiction, popular culture, and the experiences of African Americans.

/ 6 Completed

Landscapes are defined not just by their topography, but by the political histories, cultural meanings, and personal memories that we associate with them. As this chapter has shown, contemporary artists in the last several decades have found creative and varied ways to represent, critique, and pay homage to our complex relationship with the physical environment.

[1] Rosalind Krauss, “Sculpture in the Expanded Field,” October  8 (Spring, 1979), p. 30. [2] Art21 Extended Play film, “Julie Mehretu: Politicized Landscapes.” 

Key questions to guide your reading

How have artists engaged with and represented the physical environment in ways that are both critical and symbolic of humanity’s complex relationship to the earth, how have landscapes been “occupied” both in society and in art, how can artists help us to understand hidden or marginalized histories of place, and compel us to be more respectful of the natural, political, and social ecosystems that we inhabit, terms to know and use.

borderlands

colonization

environmentalism

Manifest Destiny

settler colonialism

site-specificity

Learn more about earthworks like the Pyramids of Giza , the Nazca Lines of Peru , and the Great Serpent Mounds of Ohio

More on Manifest Destiny and the displacement of Indigenous societies

Thomas Moran’s Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone and the myth of emptiness

Collaborators

Alejo Benedetti, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art

Dr. Mindy Besaw, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art

Dr. Suzanne Newman Fricke

Dr. Beth Harris

Dr. Laura Kuykendall

Courtney M. Leonard

William Schwaller

Rebecca Taylor

Dr. Allison Young

Dr. Steven Zucker

The Art Assignment

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Music Inspired by Landscape, Nature, and Place

“landscape” and the role of art in our understanding of nature.

Claude Lorrain, Landscape with the Rest on The Flight into Egypt, 1666

In this spirit, I seek to acknowledge and engage with culture-based perceptions of nature as the ways in which we humans necessarily  make sense and meaning from the world around us , whether it’s through an Albert Bierstadt painting or a Disney movie.

I feel that landscape  is the term that best embodies this overall idea. This word was imported from Dutch into English in the 16th century and has been used historically to refer to the aesthetic appreciation of nature, especially in the context of visual art. “Landscape” may be as accurately applied to bucolic scenes (the word’s original application) or cityscapes, as to wilderness locales that have been minimally impacted or modified by human hands. That having been said, as a creator and an audience member I’m interested primarily in art and music that acts as a   pathway to fostering a greater empathy with, and connection to, the rest of the natural world.

One thought on “ “Landscape” and the role of art in our understanding of nature ”

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In This Article Expand or collapse the "in this article" section Landscape

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Landscape by Nils Büttner LAST REVIEWED: 26 April 2019 LAST MODIFIED: 30 September 2013 DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780195399301-0219

This article concentrates primarily on landscape art and the visual depiction of natural scenery. It took a long time before the term “landscape” gained acceptance as the name of a painting genre. It first came into general use during the course of the 17th century, though as early as 1521, Albrecht Dürer had referred to his Antwerp colleague Joachim Patinir as a “gut landschafft mahler” (“good landscape painter”). The term became commonly used by 1604, when Karel von Mander used it in the prequel poem to his Schilder-Boeck (“painter-book”) for young painters, where he dedicated a whole chapter to landscape. The first landscape paintings originate from a time long before panel painting and its generic terminology were established. Among ancient wall paintings, many landscape images have survived. Furthermore, there is at least some literary evidence for the existence of antique panel paintings, for example in the work of Marcus Vitruvius Pollio; in particular the Vitruvian ideal of decorating interiors with “topia,” or evocations of places, which was postulated in his De architectura libri X (Book 7, chapter 5, Parts 1–3) exerted an important influence on early modern art. Examples can be found in the landscape paintings alleged to Studius (or Ludius), mentioned in Gaius Plinius Secundus’ work Naturalis historia (Book 35, chapters 116–117) Apart from chorographia , usually translated as “depictions of specific geographical regions or nations,” the locus amoenus , or “pleasant place” or idyll, was one of the most popular subjects in both secular and sacred contexts. From ancient times landscape images have combined esthetic pleasure with allegorical reference. Landscape paintings were used to depict geographical regions based on explorers’ interest, but could also be instrumentalized to legitimize claims of ownership, which may be the reason why landscape murals retained their unbroken popularity as a decorative element until the early modern period of privileges and power claims, landscape images have ornately decorated the palaces of the mighty from the Middle Ages to modern times. Yet landscape motifs also played an important role in the privileged imagistic media of tapestries and book and calendar illustration. Especially in the field of court art, the whole range of functional and receptional contexts noted from the era of antiquity onward remained alive. Thus, landscape imagery in panel painting remained a form of art in its own right and was in no way limited to merely forming the backgrounds of sacred history paintings.

Büttner 2006 , Andrews 1999 , and Crandell 1993 provide comprehensive overviews of the historic development of the pictorial genre. A very good introduction to its theory and methods is offered in DeLue and Elkins 2008 . The elementary texts Friedländer 1949 and Clark 1949 deal with questions of historical development, which have taken the works of Pochat 1973 and Eberle 1979 as their point of origin for deeper historical research. Hunt 1992 and Lauterbach 2004 focus on the related subject areas of cultivated landscapes of gardens.

Andrews, Malcolm. Landscape and Western Art . Oxford History of Art. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.

The volume examines countless ideas and samples of the landscape image repertoire which has developed in Western culture from early modern times onward. Panel painting is taken into account, as well as gardening, poetry, photography, garden design and cartography. The “Bibliographic Essay,” which forms the last chapter, is especially useful.

Büttner, Nils. Landscape Painting: A History . New York: Abbeville, 2006.

This comprehensive monograph takes into account recent theories while offering a comprehensive overview of two thousand years of landscape painting in Europe from antique times to the beginning of the 20th century, which also marks the end of the era of landscape painting. The bibliography provides an overview on the artists in alphabetical order as well as a chronological registry. For a detailed review, see Michael J. Lewis, “ The Ley of the Land ,” The New Criterion 26 (2007): 67.

Clark, Kenneth. Landscape into Art . London: John Murray, 1949.

Concerning his theses on the development of landscape painting, Clark’s book is to be regarded as outdated. Yet his classic and interesting account on how landscapes have been appreciated and represented in artists still provides the necessary terminology for a theoretical discourse on landscape as an esthetic phenomenon.

Crandell, Gina. Nature Pictorialized: The View in Landscape History . Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993.

In another historical overview from the era of antiquity to the late 19th century, the author examines the impact of literature and landscape art on the general appreciation of the environment. The well-written work offers an extensive bibliography.

DeLue, Rachael Ziady, and James Elkins, eds. Landscape Theory . Vol. 6, The Art Seminar . New York: Routledge, 2008.

An interdisciplinary introduction in the best sense of the word, this work offers an overview on numerous methodological approaches, which are so diverse that it is hardly possible to detect a unified research approach.

Eberle, Matthias. Individuum und Landschaft. zur Entstehung und Entwicklung der Landschaftsmalerei . Giessen, West Germany: Anabas-Verlag, 1979.

This dissertation is still widely quoted today and places previous theses and research on the development of landscape painting in the context of materialistic aestheticism. On the threshold between the Middle Ages and the early modern age, Eberle identifies alienation from nature and division of labor as constitutive elements for a new perspective on nature, which he perceives to be essential to the development of landscape art.

Friedländer, Max J. Landscape, Portrait, Still-Life: Their Origin and Development . Oxford: Cassirer, 1949.

In this fundamental work, art history received a new context with the interpretation that landscape as an aesthetic phenomenon has to be seen separately from the geographic point of view on the earth and its surface. Originally published as Essays über die Landschaftsmalerei und andere Bildgattungen (The Hague: A. A. M. Stols, 1947).

Hunt, John Dixon, ed. Garden History: Issues, Approaches, Methods . Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 1992.

The editor of this volume is one of the leading experts in landscape architectural theory and the development of garden design. This collection of essays introduces the issues, methods and approaches that have been developed in the field of garden history and landscape design; it remains unmatched in its wide perspective on garden history and theory.

Lauterbach, Christiane M. Gärten der musen und grazien: Mensch und natur im niederländischen Humanistengarten, 1522–1655 . Munich: Deutscher Kunstverlag, 2004.

Lauterbach is less concerned with the description of actual gardens than on the Renaissance view of the surrounding natural landscape. The numerous contemporary sources, which illustrate the thought of the time, make the book a particularly relevant touchstone of garden history.

Pochat, Götz. Figur und Landschaft: Eine historische interpretation der Landschaftsmalerei von der Antike bis zur Renaissance . Berlin: de Gruyter, 1973.

Due to its impressive amount of source material and quoted literature on the subject, this extensive and intelligent work is a useful reference guide, even though the thesis that landscape painting developed from religious history painting is now seen as outdated.

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Landscape experience: seminar in land/art.

ESSAY III. ON THE ART OF SKETCHING LANDSCAPE.

Page  61 essay iii..

THE art of sketching is to the picturesque traveller, what the art of writing is to the scholar. Each is equally necessary to fix, and communicate it's respective ideas.

Sketches are either taken from the imagi∣nation, or from nature. —When the imaginary sketch proceeds from the hands of a master, it is very valuable. It is his first conception; which is commonly the strongest, and the most brilliant. The imagination of a painter, really great in his profession, is a magazine abound∣ing with all the elegant forms, and striking effects, which are to be found in nature. These, like a magician, he calls up at pleasure with a wave of his hand; bringing before the eye, sometimes a scene from history, or ro∣mance; Page  62 and sometimes from the inanimate parts of nature. And in these happy moments, when the enthusiasm of his art is upon him, he often produces from the glow of his imagi∣nation, with a few bold strokes, such wonder∣ful effusions of genius, as the more sober, and correct productions of his pencil cannot equal.

It will always however be understood, that such sketches must be examined also by an eye learned in the art, and accustomed to pictu∣resque ideas—an eye, that can take up the half-formed images, as the master leaves them; give them a new creation; and make up all that is not expressed from it's own store-house. —I shall however dwell no longer on ima∣ginary sketching, as it hath but little relation to my present subject. Let me only add, that altho this essay is meant chiefly to assist the picturesque traveller in taking views from nature, the method recommended, as far as it relates to execution, may equally be applied to imaginary sketches.

Your intention in taking views from nature, may either be to fix them in your own memory Page  63 —or to convey, in some degree, your ideas to others.

With regard to the former, when you meet a scene you wish to sketch, your first consi∣deration is to get it in the best point of view. A few paces to the right, or left, make a great difference. The ground, which folds awkwardly here, appears to fold more easily there: and that long blank curtain of the castle, which is so unpleasing a circumstance, as you stand on one side, is agreeably broken by a buttress on another.

Having thus fixed your point of view, your next consideration, is, how to reduce it properly within the compass of your paper: for the scale of nature being so very different from your scale, it is a matter of difficulty, without some experience, to make them coin∣cide. If the landscape before you is extensive, take care you do not include too much: it may perhaps be divided more commodiously into two sketches.—When you have fixed the portion of it, you mean to take, fix next on two or three principal points, which you may just mark on your paper. This will en∣able you the more easily to ascertain the re∣lative situation of the several objects.

Page  64 In sketching, black-lead is the first instru∣ment commonly used. Nothing glides so volubly over paper, and executes an idea so quickly.—It has besides, another advantage; it's grey tint corresponds better with a wash, than black, or red chalk, or any other pastile. —It admits also of easy correction.

The virtue of these hasty, black-lead sketches consists in catching readily the cha∣racteristic features of a scene. Light and shade are not attended to. It is enough if you express general shapes; and the relations, which the several intersections of a country bear to each other. A few lines drawn on the spot, will do this. "Half a word, says Mr. Gray, fixed on, or near the spot, is worth all our recollected ideas. When we trust to the picture, that objects draw of themselves on the mind, we deceive ourselves. Without accurate, and particular observation, it is but ill-drawn at first: the outlines are soon blur∣red: the colours, every day grow fainter; and at last, when we would produce it to any body, we are obliged to supply it's defects Page  65 with a few strokes of our own imagination." * — What Mr. Gray says, relates chiefly to verbal description: but in lineal description it is equally true. The leading ideas must be fixed on the spot: if left to the memory, they soon evaporate.

The lines of black-lead, and indeed of any one instrument, are subject to the great incon∣venience of confounding distances. If there are two, or three distances in the landscape, as each of them is expressed by the same kind of line, the eye forgets the distinction, even in half a day's travelling; and all is confusion. To remedy this, a few written references, made on the spot, are necessary, if the land∣scape be at all complicated. The traveller should be accurate in this point, as the spirit of his view depends much on the proper ob∣servance of distances.—At his first leisure however he will review his sketch; add a few strokes with a pen, to mark the near grounds; and by a slight wash of Indian ink, throw in a few general lights, and shades, to keep all fixed, and in it's place.—A sketch Page  66 need not be carried farther, when it is in∣tended merely to assist our own memory.

But when a sketch is intended to convey, in some degree, our ideas to others, it is neces∣sary, that it should be somewhat more adorned. To us the scene, familiar to our recollection, may be suggested by a few rough strokes: but if you wish to raise the idea, where none existed before, and to do it agreeably, there should be some composition in your sketch—a degree of correctness, and expression in the out-line— and some effect of light. A little ornament also from figures, and other circumstances may be introduced. In short, it should be so far dressed, as to give some idea of a picture. I call this an adorned sketch; and should sketch nothing, that was not capable of being thus dressed. An unpicturesque as∣semblage of objects; and, in general, all untractable subjects, if it be necessary to re∣present them, may be given as plans, rather than as pictures.

In the first place, I should advise the tra∣veller by no means to work his adorned sketch Page  67 upon his original one. His first sketch is the standard, to which, in the absence of nature, he must at least recur for his general ideas. By going over it again, the original ideas may be lost, and the whole thrown into con∣fusion. Great masters therefore always set a high value on their sketches from nature. On the same principle the picturesque tra∣veller preserves his original sketch, tho in itself of little value, to keep him within proper bounds.

This matter being settled, and the adorned sketch begun anew, the first point is to fix the composition.

But the composition, you say, is already fixed by the original sketch.

It is true: but still it may admit many little alterations, by which the forms of objects may be assisted; and yet the resem∣blance not disfigured: as the same piece of music, performed by different masters, and graced variously by each, may yet con∣tinue still the same. We must ever recol∣lect that nature is most defective in com∣position; and must be a little assisted. Her ideas are too vast for picturesque use, without the restraint of rules. Liberties however with Page  68 truth must be taken with caution: tho at the same time a distinction may be made between an object, and a scene. If I give the striking features of the castle, or abbey, which is my object, I may be allowed some little liberty in bringing appendages (which are not essential features) within the rules of my art. But in a scene, the whole view becomes the portrait; and if I flatter here, I must flatter with de∣licacy.

But whether I represent an object, or a scene, I hold myself at perfect liberty, in the first place, to dispose the foreground as I please; restrained only by the analogy of the country. I take up a tree here, and plant it there. I pare a knoll, or make an addition to it. I remove a piece of paling—a cottage—a wall— or any removeable object, which I dislike. In short, I do not so much mean to exact a liberty of introducing what does not exist; as of making a few of those simple variations, of which all ground is easily susceptible, and which time itself indeed is continually making. All this my art exacts:

The foreground indeed is a mere spot, compa∣red with the extension of the distance: in itself it is of trivial consequence; and cannot well be called a feature of the scene. And yet, tho so little essential in giving a likeness, it is more so than any other part in forming a compo∣sition. It resembles those deep tones in music, which give a value to all the lighter parts; and harmonize the whole.

As the foreground therefore is of so much consequence, begin your adorned sketch with fixing this very material part. It is easier to ascertain the situation of your foreground, as it lies so near the bottom of your paper, than any other part; and this will tend to regulate every thing else. In your rough sketch it has probably been inaccurately thrown in. You could not so easily ascer∣tain it, till you had gotten all your landscape together. You might have carried it too high on your paper; or have brought it too low. As you have now the general scheme of your landscape before you, you may adjust it properly; and give it it's due proportion. —I shall add only, on the subject of fore∣grounds, Page  70 that you need not be very nice in finishing them, even when you mean to adorn your sketches. In a finished picture the fore∣ground is a matter of great nicety: but in a sketch little more is necessary, than to produce the effect you desire.

Having fixed your foreground, you consider in the same way, tho with more caution, the other parts of your composition. In a hasty transcript from nature, it is sufficient to take the lines of the country just as you find them: but in your adorned sketch you must grace them a little, where they run false. You must contrive to hide offensive parts with wood; to cover such as are too bald, with • ushes; and to remove little objects, which in nature push themselves too much in sight, and serve only to introduce too many parts into your composition. In this happy adjust∣ment the grand merit of your sketch consists. No beauty of light, colouring, or execution can atone for the want of composition. It is the foundation of all picturesque beauty. No finery of dress can set off a person, whose figure is awkward, and uncouth.

Having thus digested the composition of your adorned sketch, which is done with black-lead, Page  71 you proceed to give a stronger outline to the foreground, and nearer parts. Some indeed use no outline, but what they freely work with a brush on their black-lead sketch. This comes nearest the idea of painting; and as it is the most free, it is perhaps also the most excellent method: but as a black-lead outline is but a feeble termination, it re∣quires a greater force in the wash to produce an effect; and of course more the hand of a master. The hand of a master indeed pro∣duces an effect with the rudest materials: but these precepts aim only at giving a few in∣structions to the tyroes of the art; and such will perhaps make their out-line the most effectually with a pen. As the pen is more determined than black-lead, it leaves less to the brush, which I think the more difficult instrument.—Indian ink, (which may be heightened, or lowered to any degree of strength, or weakness, so as to touch both the nearer, and more distant grounds,) is the best ink you can use. You may give a stroke with it so light as to confine even a remote distance; tho such a distance is perhaps best left in black-lead.

Page  72 But when we speak of an out-line, we do not mean a simple contour; which, (however necessary in a correct figure,) would in land∣scape be formal. It is enough to mark with a few free touches of the pen, here and there, some of the breaks, and roughnesses, in which the richness of an object consists. But you must first determine the situation of your lights, that you may mark these touches on the shadowy side.

Of these free touches with a pen the chief characteristic is expression; or the art of giving each object, that peculiar touch, whether smooth, or rough, which best expresses it's form. The art of painting, in it's highest perfection, cannot give the richness of nature. When we examine any natural form, we find the multiplicity of it's parts beyond the highest finishing: and indeed generally an attempt at the highest finishing would end in stiffness. The painter is obliged therefore to deceive the eye by some natural tint, or expressive touch, from which the imagination takes it's cue. How often do we see in the landscapes of Claude the full effect of distance; which, when examined closely, consists of a simple dash, tinged with the hue of nature, Page  73 intermixed with a few expressive touches?— If then these expressive touches are necessary, where the master carries on the deception both in form, and colour; how necessary must they be in mere sketches, in which colour, the great vehicle of deception, is removed?—The art however of giving those expressive marks with a pen, which impress ideas, is no common one. The inferior artist may give them by chance: but the master only gives them with precision.—Yet a sketch may have it's use, and even it's merit, without these strokes of genius.

As the difficulty of using the pen is such, it may perhaps be objected, that it is an improper instrument for a tyro. It loses it's grace, if it have not a ready, and off-hand execution.

It is true: but what other instrument shall we put into his hands, that will do better? His black-lead, his brush, whatever he touches, will be unmasterly. But my chief reason for putting a pen into his hands, is, that without a pen it will be difficult for him to preserve his outline, and distances. His touches with a pen may be unmasterly, we allow: but still they will preserve keeping in his landscape, Page  74 without which the whole will be a blot of confusion.—Nor is it perhaps so difficult to obtain some little freedom with a pen. I have seen assiduity, attended with but little genius, make a considerable progress in the use of this instrument; and produce an effect by no means displeasing.—If the drawing be large, I should recommend a reed-pen, which runs more freely over paper.

When the out-line is thus drawn, it re∣mains to add light, and shade. In this ope∣ration the effect of a wash is much better, than of lines hatched with a pen. A brush will do more in one stroke, and generally more effectually, than a pen can do in twenty. * For this purpose, we need only Page  [unnumbered] [illustration] Page  [unnumbered] [illustration] Page  75 Indian ink; and perhaps a little bistre, or burnt umber. With the former we give that greyish tinge, which belongs to the sky, and distant objects; and with the latter (mixed more, or less with Indian ink) those warm touches, which belong to the foreground. Indian ink however alone makes a good wash both for the foreground, and distance.

But mere light and shade are not sufficient: something of effect also should be aimed at in the adorned sketch. Mere light and shade propose only the simple illumination of objects. Effect, by balancing large masses of each, gives the whole a greater force.—Now tho in the exhibitions of nature, we commonly find only the simple illumination of objects; yet as we often do meet with grand effects also, we have sufficient authority to use them: for under these circumstances we see nature in her best attire, in which it is our business to describe her.

As to giving rules for the production of effect, the subject admits only the most gene∣ral. There must be a strong opposition of light and shade; in which the sky, as well as the landscape, must combine. But in what Page  76 way this opposition must be varied—where the full tone of shade must prevail—where the full effusion of light—or where the various degrees of each—depends intirely on the cir∣cumstance of the composition. All you can do, is to examine your drawing (yet in it's naked out-line) with care; and endeavour to find out where the force of the light will have the best effect. But this depends more on taste, than on rule.

One thing both in light and shade should be observed, especially in the former—and that is gradation; which gives a force beyond what a glaring display of light can give. The effect of light, which falls on the stone, produced as an illustration of this idea, would not be so great, unless it graduated into shade. —In the following stanza Mr. Gray has with great beauty, and propriety, illustrated the vicissitudes of life by the principles of picturesque effect.

Page  [unnumbered] [illustration]

Page  77 I may farther add, that the production of an effect is particularly necessary in drawing. In painting, colour in some degree makes up the deficency: but in simple clair-obscure there is no succedaneum. It's force depends on effect; the virtue of which is such, that it will give a value even to a barren subject. Like striking the chords of a musical instru∣ment, it will produce harmony, without any richness of composition.

It is farther to be observed, that when objects are in shadow, the light, (as it is then a reflected one,) falls on the opposite side to that, on which it falls, when they are in∣lightened.

In adorning your sketch, a figure, or two may be introduced with propriety. By figures I mean moving objects, as waggons, and boats, as well as cattle, and men. But they should be introduced sparingly. In profusion they are affected. Their chief use is, to mark a road—to break a piece of foreground—to point out the horizon in a sea-view—or to carry off the distance of retiring water by the contrast of a dark sail, not quite so distant, placed before it. But in figures thus designed for the ornament of a sketch, a few slight Page  78 touches are sufficient. Attempts at finishing offend. *

Among trees, little distinction need be made, unless you introduce the pine, or the cypress, or some other singular form. The oak, the ash, and the elm, which bear a distant resem∣blance to each other, may all be characterized alike. In a sketch, it is enough to mark a tree. One distinction indeed is often necessary even in sketches; and that is, between full-leaved trees, and those of straggling ramification. In composition we have often occasion for both, and therefore the hand should be used readily to execute either. If we have a general idea of the oak, for instance, as a light tree; and of the beech as a heavy one, it is sufficient.

It adds, I think, to the beauty of a sketch to stain the paper slightly with a reddish, or yellowish tinge; the use of which is to give a more pleasing tint to the ground of the drawing by taking away the glare of the paper. It adds also, if it be not too strong, a degree of harmony to the rawness of black, and white. Page  [unnumbered] [illustration] Page  79 This tinge may be laid on, either before, or after the drawing is made. In general, I should prefer the latter method; because, while the drawing is yet on white paper, you may correct it with a sponge, dipt in water; which will, in a good degree, efface Indian ink. But if you rub out any part, after the drawing is stained, you cannot easily lay the stain again upon the rubbed part without the appearance of a patch.

Some chuse rather to add a little colour to their sketches. My instructions attempt not the art of mixing a variety of tints; and finishing a drawing from nature; which is generally executed in colours from the begin∣ning, without any use of Indian ink; except as a grey tint, uniting with other colours. This indeed, when chastly executed, (which is not often the case) exceeds in beauty every other species of drawing. It is however be∣yond my skill to give any instruction for this mode of drawing. All I mean, is only to offer a modest way of tinting a sketch already finish∣ed in Indian ink. By the addition of a little colour I mean only to give some distinction Page  80 to objects; and introduce rather a gayer stile into a landscape.

When you have finished your sketch there∣fore with Indian ink, as far as you propose, tinge the whole over with some light horizon hue. It may be the rosy tint of morning; or the more ruddy one of evening; or it may incline more to a yellowish, or a greyish cast. As a specimen an evening hue is given. The first tint you spread over your drawing, is composed of light red, and oker, which make an orange. It may incline to one, or the other, as you chuse. In this example it in∣clines rather to the former. By washing this tint over your whole drawing, you lay a foun∣dation for harmony. When this wash is nearly dry, repeat it in the horizon; softening it off into the sky, as you ascend.—Take next a purple tint, composed of lake, and blue, inclining rather to the former; and with this, when your first wash is dry, form your clouds; and then spread it, as you did the first tint, over your whole drawing, except where you leave the horizon-tint. This still strengthens the idea of harmony. Your sky, and distance are now finished.

Page  81 You proceed next to your middle, and fore∣grounds; in both which you distinguish between the soil, and the vegetation. Wash the middle grounds with a little umber. This will be sufficient for the soil. The soil of the fore∣ground you may go over with a little light red. The vegetation of each may be washed with a green, composed of blue, and oker; adding a little more oker as you proceed nearer the eye; and on the nearest grounds a little burnt terra Sienna. This is sufficient for the middle grounds. The foreground may farther want a little heightening both in the soil, and vegeta∣tion. In the soil it may be given in the lights with burnt terra Sienna; mixing in the shadows a little lake: and in the vegetation with gall∣stone; touched in places, and occasionally varied, with a little burnt terra Sienna.

Trees on the foreground are considered as a part of it; and their foliage may be co∣loured like the vegetation in their neigh∣bourhood. Their stems may be touched with burnt terra Sienna.—Trees, in middle distances are darker than the lawns, on which they stand. They must therefore be touched twice over with the tint, which is given only once to the lawn.

Page  82 If you represent clouds with bright edges, the edges must be left in the first orange; while the tint over the other part of the horizon is repeated, as was mentioned before.

A lowering, cloudy sky is represented by, what is called, a grey tint, composed of lake, blue, and oker. As the shadow deepens, the tint should incline more to blue.

The several tints mentioned in the above process, may perhaps the most easily be mixed before you begin; especially if your drawing be large. Rub the raw colours in little saucers: keep them clean, and distinct; and from them, mix your tints in other little vessels.

I shall only add, that the strength of the colouring you give your sketch, must depend on the height, to which you have carried the Indian ink finishing. If it be only a slight sketch, it will bear only a light wash of colour.

This mode however of tinting a drawing, even when you tint it as high as these instruc∣tions reach, is by no means calculated to produce any great effect of colouring: but it is at least sufficient to preserve harmony. This you may preserve: an effect of colouring you cannot easily attain. It is something how∣ever Page  83 to avoid a disagreeable excess; and there is nothing surely so disagreeable to a correct eye as a tinted drawing (such as we often see) in which greens, and blues, and reds, and yellows are daubed without any attention to harmony. It is to the picturesque eye, what a discord of harsh notes is to a musical ear.

But the advocate for these glaring tints may perhaps say, he does not make his sky more blue than nature; nor his grass, and trees more green.

Perhaps so: but unless he could work up his drawing with the finishing of nature, he will find the effect very unequal. Nature mixes a variety of semitints with her brightest colours: and tho the eye cannot readily sepa∣rate them, they have a general chastizing effect; and keep the several tints of landscape within proper bounds, which a glare of deep colours cannot do. Besides, this chastizing hue is produced in nature by numberless little shadows, beyond the attention of art, which she throws on leaves, and piles of grass, and every other minute object; all which, tho not easily distinguished in particulars, tells in the whole, and is continually chastening the hues of nature.

Page  84 Before I conclude these remarks on sketch∣ing, it may be useful to add a few words, and but a few, on perspective. The nicer parts of it contain many difficulties; and are of little use in common landscape: but as a building, now and then, occurs, which requires some little knowledge of perspective, the subject should not be left wholly un∣touched.

If a building stand exactly in front, none of it's lines can go off in perspective: but if it stand with a corner to the eye, as picturesque buildings commonly do, it's lines will appear to recede. In what manner they recede, the following mechanical method may explain.

Hold horizontally between your eye, and the building you draw, a flat ruler, till you see only the edge of it. Where it cuts the nearest perpendicular of the building, which you have already just traced on your paper, make a mark; and draw a slight line through that part, parallel with the bottom of your paper. This is called the horizontal line, and regulates the whole perspective. Observe next the angle, which the uppermost of these reced∣ing Page  [unnumbered] [illustration] Page  85 lines makes with the nearest perpendicular of the building; and continue that receding line till it meet the horizontal line. From the point, where it intersects, draw another line to the bottom of the nearest perpendicular. This gives you the perspective of the base. In the same manner all the lines, which recede, on both sides, of the building; as well above, as below the horizontal line —windows, doors, and projections of every kind, (on the same plane)—are regulated. The points on the horizontal line, in which these receding lines unite, are called points of sight.

After all, however, from the mode of sketching here recommended (which is as far as I should wish to recommend drawing landscape to those, who draw only for amuse∣ment) no great degree of accuracy can be expected. General ideas only must be looked for; not the peculiarities of portrait. It admits the winding river—the shooting pro∣montory —the castle—the abbey—the flat dis∣tance —and the mountain melting into the horizon. It admits too the relation, which all these parts bear to each other. But it Page  86 descends not to the minutiae of objects. The fringed bank of the river—the Gothic ornaments of the abbey—the chasms, and frac∣tures of the rock, and castle—and every little object along the vale, it pretends not to delineate with exactness. All this is the pro∣vince of the finished drawing, and the pic∣ture; in which the artist conveys an idea of each minute feature of the country he delineates, or imagines. But high finishing, as I have before observed, belongs only to a master, who can give expressive touches. The disciple, whom I am instructing, and whom I instruct only from my own experience, must have humbler views; and can hardly expect to please, if he go farther than a sketch, adorned as hath been here described.

Many gentlemen, who draw for amuse∣ment, employ their leisure on human figures, animal life, portrait, perhaps history. Here and there a man of genius makes some pro∣ficiency in these difficult branches of the art: but I have rarely seen any, who do. Dis∣torted faces, and dislocated limbs, I have seen in abundance: and no wonder; for the science of anatomy, even as it regards painting, is with difficulty attained; and few who have Page  87 studied it their whole lives, have acquired perfection.

Others again, who draw for amusement, go so far as to handle the pallet. But in this the success of the ill-judging artist seldom answers his hopes; unless utterly void of taste, he happen to be such an artist as may be ad∣dressed in the sarcasm of the critic, —Sine rivali teque, et tua solus amares. Painting is both a science, and an art; and if so very few attain perfection, who spend a life-time on it, what can be expected from those, who spend only their leisure? The very few gentlemen-artists, who excel in paint∣ing, scarce afford encouragement for common practice.

But the art of sketching landscape is attainable by a man of business; and it is certainly more useful; and, I should imagine, more amusing, to attain some degree of excellence in an in∣ferior branch, than to be a mere bungler in a superior. Even if you should not excel in execution (which indeed you can hardly ex∣pect) you may at least by bringing home the delineation of a fine country, dignify an in∣different Page  88 s;ketch. You may please yourself by administring strongly to recollection: and you may please others by conveying your ideas more distinctly in an ordinary sketch, than in the best language.