LANDSCAPE
The earliest traits of the landscape art can be seen in the Neolithic rock paintings left by the ancient people who lived where there are now the sands of the Sahara Desert, but the flowering of landscape painting falls on the Renaissance. The great artists of that era - Leonardo da Vinci, Titian, and El Greco - created their masterpieces in this genre. Their original oil paintings were eagerly bought by European rulers. The word landscape came from Dutch landschap and means painting representing an extensive view of natural scenery. Creators of these original artworks sought to inspire art lovers with pacification from simple life and charming landscapes. This art was especially popular in France and Italy in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It was a common thing when a painter portrayed a real-life area, not imaginary, and yet the image underwent undisguised idealization and reinterpretation, and served as reflection of the artist’s ideas of beauty. In many respects, these traditions of creating landscapes remain nowadays. And why would this genre survive in the era of photography?
Let’s mention painters whose original artworks were popular with connoisseurs of painting. A painter from Italy of the XVIII century Canaletto (Giovanni Antonio Canal) created wonderful landscapes of Venice in the style of academicism. On his artworks he accurately portrayed architectural sights of this city on water. British collectors were especially fond of his paintings. British landscape artist John Constable admired the beauty of his fatherland and painted landscapes on canvas at the dawn of the nineteenth century. His artworks are romantic and create a lyrical mood. Landscape artworks by Paul Signac, an artist from France of the second half of the nineteenth century, seem to be full of light and air. Landscape painting has a variety of subjects, and is divided into a number of movements - cityscape, rural landscape, and marine (seascape). The artworks of this genre depict flora, architecture and technology (automobiles, sea vessels). Natural phenomena like rain, snow, drifting clouds are also depicted. Heavenly bodies are among them, after all, landscape paintings show a day with the shining sun, and a night with the shining moon and flickering stars. Images of people and animals are also not uncommon for landscapes. Masterfully executed paintings of genius artists convey the blowing wind, flying snow, wind in the trees, splash of the wave. In order to convey the beauty of nature, landscape artists must have genuine talent and high professionalism. Art paintings, including landscape are available on the Jose Art Gallery website.
