Impressionistic Landscape Painting



Plein Air or Landscape Painting

Landscapes are works of art that feature scenes of nature. This includes mountains, lakes, gardens, rivers, and any scenic view. Landscapes can be oil paintings, watercolors, gauche, pastels, or prints of any kind.

Painting the Scenery

Derived from the Dutch word landschap, landscape paintings capture the natural world around us. We tend to think of this genre as majestic mountain scenes, gently rolling hills, and still water garden ponds. Yet, landscapes can depict any scenery and feature subjects within them such as buildings, animals, and people.

While there is a traditional viewpoint of landscapes, over the years artists have turned to other settings. Cityscapes, for instance, are views of urban areas, seascapes capture the ocean, and waterscapes feature freshwater such as the work of Monet on the Seine.

Landscape Painting in History

As popular as they may be today, landscapes are relatively new to the art world. Capturing the beauty of the natural world was not a priority in early art when the focus was on spiritual or historical subjects. 

It was not until the 17th century that landscape painting began to emerge. Many art historians recognize that it was during this time that scenery became the subject itself and not just an element in the background.

Landscape painting ranked fourth in the hierarchy of genres set up by the French Art Academy. History painting, portraiture, and genre (scenes from everyday life) painting were considered more important.

But by the 19th century, landscapre paintings had gained widespread popularity. It often romanticized the scenic views and came to dominate the subjects of paintings as artists attempted to capture what was around them for all to see. Landscapes also gave the first (and only) glimpse many people had of foreign lands, like artist traveling with early settlers moving West in America and painting the new landscapes, such as Yoesmite or Yellow Stone parks.

When the Impressionists emerged in the mid-1800s, landscapes began to be less realistic and literal. Though collectors will always enjoy realistic landscapes, artists like Monet, Renoir, and Cezanne demonstrated a new view of the natural world.

From there, landscape painting has thrived, and it is now one of the most popular genres among collectors. Artists have taken the landscape to a variety of places with new interpretations and many sticking with tradition. One thing is for sure; the landscape genre now dominates the landscape of the art world.

Art Vocabulary:

Atmospheric Perspective: The effect of distance in a painting created by using paler and less intense colors for faraway elements, representing them as they appear in nature owing to conditions of distance, air, and light. For the background, retreating colors (cool colors, such as blue, which suggests distance) are used.

Color: Color has three attributes: hue or tint – the actual color itself; Intensity – the degree of purity or strength;

Value – the lightness or darkness of a color.

Analogous: Colors that contain a common hue and are found next to each other on the color wheel.

Complementary: Two colors opposite one another on the color wheel. When mixed together, complementary colors make brown or gray. When used next to each other they create interesting contrasts.

Composition: The organization of form in a work of art, such as the arrangement of shapes, masses, and areas of light and dark.

Painting Medium:

Acrylic Paint: A type of paint made with synthetic resin as the medium (liquid) to bind the pigment (color), rather than natural oils such as linseed used in oil paints. It has the advantage of drying faster than oil paint and being water-soluble. The first acrylics were produced in the 1920s and 1930s in Germany, with acrylic paints specifically produced for fine artists emerging in the 1950s. Although water soluable, this paint does not wash out once it dries.

Techniques of Paining:

Blending: Mixing two or more colors directly on the painting surface.

Dabbing: Touching the surface of the painting lightly or quickly.

Impasto: Thick application of paint, done with a palette knife or brush.

Stippling: Applying paint with dots or short strokes.

Texture: The surface tactile qualities of a work of art that are referred to as being rough or smooth, coarse or fine, shiny or dull.

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