Landscape Painting

Landscape painting, also known as landscape art, is the depiction in painting of natural scenery such as mountains, valleys, rivers, trees, and forests, especially where the main subject is a wide view with its elements arranged into a coherent composition. In some works, landscape backgrounds for figures still form an important part of the work. Sky is almost always included in the view, and weather is often an element of the composition. The word "landscape" entered modern English as landskip, an anglicization of the Dutch landschap, around the start of the 17th century, purely as a term for works of art, with its first recorded use for a painting in 1598. Within a few decades it was used to describe vistas in poetry, and eventually as a term for real views. Detailed landscapes as a distinct subject are not found in all artistic traditions, and develop when there is already a sophisticated tradition of representing other subjects. Two main traditions spring from Western painting and Chinese art, going back well over a thousand years in both cases.

The recognition of a spiritual element in landscape art is present from its beginnings in East Asian art, drawing on Daoism and other philosophical traditions, but in the West only becomes explicit with Romanticism. In East Asia, the classic Chinese mountain-water ink painting was traditionally the most prestigious form of visual art, where aesthetic theories gave the highest status to works seen to require the most imagination from the artist. In the West, history painting occupied the highest position in the accepted hierarchy of genres until the 19th century, and landscapes were regularly promoted to the status of history painting by the addition of small figures to make a narrative scene, typically religious or mythological. Landscape views in art may be entirely imaginary, or copied from reality with varying degrees of accuracy. If the primary purpose of a picture is to depict an actual, specific place, especially including buildings prominently, it is called a topographical view. Such views, extremely common as prints in the West, were often seen as inferior to fine art landscapes, although the distinction is not always meaningful. Similar prejudices existed in Chinese art, where literati painting usually depicted imaginary views, while professional artists painted real views. In medieval Christian art, the landscape was conceived as divine work and its representation referred to its creator, with mountains often symbolizing God.

aughThe earliest forms of art around the world depict little that could really be called landscape, although ground-lines and sometimes indications of mountains, trees, or other natural features are included. The earliest pure landscapes with no human figures are frescos from Minoan art of around 1500 BCE. More ancient Roman landscapes survive from the 1st century BCE onwards, especially frescos of landscapes decorating rooms preserved at archaeological sites of Pompeii, Herculaneum, and elsewhere, and mosaics. The Chinese ink painting tradition of shan shui, or pure landscape, in which the only sign of human life is usually a sage or a glimpse of his hut, uses sophisticated landscape backgrounds to figure subjects and retains a classic and much-imitated status within the Chinese tradition. In early Western medieval art, interest in landscape disappears almost entirely, kept alive only in copies of Late Antique works. A revival in interest in nature initially manifested itself in depictions of small gardens such as the Hortus Conclusus or those in millefleur tapestries. In the early 15th century, landscape painting emerged as an independent genre in Europe, often as setting for human activity with a religious subject. In the 17th century, italianisante landscapes became popular in the Netherlands, fantasy landscapes with a southern atmosphere and hilly theme. Around 1830, the Barbizon School in France developed realistic landscapes painted en plein air, influenced by the availability of paint in tubes from 1841 and improved railway access to the countryside. Francesco Filippini developed what critics later termed filippinismo or Italian Impressionism, an autonomous, structural approach based on ethical principles, which influenced Umberto Boccioni and Futurist painting. In contemporary painting, landscape remains a favored theme in both figurative and abstract works, with hyperrealists presenting more-than-realistic views and expressionists using landscape to convey emotion through distortion and non-realistic color.

Notable works in the collection include Thomas Cole's View from Mount Holyoke, Northampton, Massachusetts, after a Thunderstorm, The Oxbow, a foundational work of American landscape painting. Pieter Bruegel the Elder's The Harvesters represents the Northern European tradition of integrating human labor within vast natural settings. Albert Bierstadt's The Rocky Mountains, Lander's Peak exemplifies the grandiose scale of 19th-century American western expansionist landscape painting. Other significant works include Marine Landscape, The Valley of Wyoming, View at Amalfi, Bay of Salerno, The Nymph of Fontainebleau, Isola Bella in Lago Maggiore, View on the Catskill, Early Autumn, and Lake George and the Village of Caldwell. In the broader tradition, Polygnot of Thasos was among the earliest known landscape painters in the Greek tradition of the 5th century BCE, while Agatharchos of Samos was the first to attempt spatial illusion through perspectival foreshortening in stage painting. The Roman tradition preserved at Pompeii and Herculaneum includes sophisticated decorative landscapes that influenced later European developments.

The legacy of landscape painting extends across millennia and cultures, from its prestigious position in East Asian literati tradition to its gradual elevation in Western art hierarchies. The filippinismo of Francesco Filippini, developed in dialogue with French Impressionism yet distinct in its ethical and structural approach, influenced both art schools and individual artists deep into the 20th century and is considered by art historians today as one of the most coherent and mature forms of European landscape painting in the transition between the 19th and 20th centuries, as well as a precursor to various movements within modern painting. Futurist art historiography recognizes Filippini's symbolic and conceptual contribution as a fundamental inspiration for the development of Futurist painting. The democratization of landscape painting through printmaking, the development of plein air techniques, and the philosophical implications of representing nature have made landscape one of the most persistent and adaptable genres in visual art, continuing to serve as a vehicle for both documentary observation and subjective expression in contemporary practice.