Landscape Paintings

The Landscape Painting through the ages

Reading time: 10 minutes. By art historian Wouter Maas

De Landschap Schilderij is een van de meest geliefde schilderijen om naar te kijken en te kopen. In Nederland hebben wij een lang traditie van Landschap schilderkunst. Wij hebben de kunsthistoricus Wouter Maas gevraagd om ons meer te vertellen over Landschap schilderkunst. Wouter is een kunsthistoricus gespecialiseerd in vroeg Moderne kunstgeschiedenis. Hij neem ons op een betoverende reis door de tijd en leg de ontwikkeling van Landschappen schilderkunst in Europa uit.

Middeleeuwse begin van de landschap weergeven 

The 9th century apse mosaic. Santa Cecilia in Trastevere, in Rome, Italy.

In Rome, the Santa Cecilia in Trastevere is located, a church built in the fifth century that has undergone many alterations (or 'updates') in its long existence. The mosaic in the apse, at the very back in the center of the building, is largely original. We see Christ in the middle, slightly larger than the figures around him. Five of these figures are saints, and the environment in which they stand is Paradise, or Garden of Eden.

Interpreting the afterlife as a garden was already common before the emergence of Christianity. Art that depicts paradise lends itself perfectly to the display of landscape art. The artist of the mosaic in the Santa Cecilia in Transtevere depicts the garden through green grass with flowers, and through the two palm trees on either side. The medium, which uses small stones, is of course not suitable for depicting a landscape. Yet there appears to be little attention for this genre in medieval art, and it is only at the end of this period that the attention of artists increases.

Barring exceptions, such as the Utrecht Psalter, the first examples of attention to a detailed environment can be seen from the fourteenth century. Tuscan old masters such as Duccio di Buoninsegna and Giotto di Bondone pay attention to the environment in which they place their figures. Rocks, trees, plants, grass, flowers. Suddenly saints start moving in a real space. As a result, from the "real" aspect of their painting, saints become more human. This development is not only visible in Tuscany. The French Guillaume de Machaut depicts almost only nature in The Enchanted Garden from the book Le Dit du Lion. This is one of the first landscapes in Western art history and can be seen as a harbinger of later developments.

The Enchanted Garden from the book Le Dit du Lion, (ca 1345-1350) Guillaume de Machaut.

Landscape Paintings: Jumping to the 15th Century

At the beginning of the fifteenth century, the genre of landscape was used by artists as a setting for depicting figures. In fact, there is always a story that is told against a background. Christian themes such as crucifixion scenes, the Flight on the Road to Egypt, or saints in the wasteland, lend themselves perfectly to depicting landscapes. But also non-religious landscapes arise. A calendar has been added to the famous Les Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry  (a prayer book), the decoration of which was done by the Limburg brothers. The example here is from the month of March. In the background we see a walled castle, while in the foreground sheep are grazing, winegrowing is being done and a field is being plowed. Everyday life has entered the landscape genre.

Page "July" from the Les Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry (1410). Musée Conde in Château de Chantilly, France.

Les Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry is French for "The very rich hours of the Duke of Berry".

Portinari Altarpiece [Or; Portinari triptych] (1476-78), Hugo van der Goes. Oil on panel, 253 cm x 141 cm. Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Italy.

It is important to mention is the Portinari Altarpiece by Hugo van der Goes, which was commissioned for a Florentine church in 1474. The depiction of atmospheric perspective, in which objects that are far away become bluish, is an innovation that had great influence, such as in the work of Leonardo da Vinci. An example can be seen in The Madonna of the Rocks. The Italian "invention" of the scientific perspective, and the dissemination of this knowledge across Europe, greatly influenced the display of large, naturalistic vistas.

"Madonna on the Rocks" (1491 - 1508), Giovanni Ambrogio de Predis, conducted by Leonardo da Vinci. Oil on Panel. 189.5 x 120 cm. National Gallery, London, United Kingdom.

Back to the top of the Alps: The NORTH

Landscape Painting development in the Netherlands

Developments in the Netherlands in the same century flourished. The landscape developed more and more into an independent genre. Explanations for this are sought, among other things, in the influence of Humanism, which gave the Church less influence. And the tensions between different religious groups of Christians will also have had an effect. An artist made paintings for Catholics, Lutherans, Calvinists, etc. Landscapes that have a secular character are attractive to all these groups. In this context it is interesting to compare the work of Joachim Patinir (early sixteenth century) and Pieter Breugel the Elder (second half of the sixteenth century).

Besides the difference in seasons in Saint Jerome in the Wasteland and Hunters in the Snow, there are similarities. A high horizon, rocks for a dramatic effect, the sharpness decreases the further we look. While Patinir still needs the justification of a Christian subject, Breugel does not see the need for this. And where German painters at least get their subject from Classical Antiquity, Breugel looks at everyday life as an independent painting. This development continued in the seventeenth century in the Northern Netherlands. Landscapes became a hugely popular genre. This, combined with astonishingly talented artists, has ensured that we can still admire a large number of high-quality Dutch paintings.

Landscape Paintings: The Artist as Intellectual

With the development of the profession of painter from craftsman to intellectual, art theory arose, and later institutes – the academies – were established. In the seventeenth century, Paris became a leading example in Western Europe. One of the notions developed was the view that there was a hierarchy of genres in painting. At the top was the history painting with Biblical or Mythological subjects, portraiture, genre pieces (such as Jan Steen), landscape art, animals and still lifes at the bottom. Now the painter had opportunities to play with this rigid system. For example, in Landscape with the Temple of the Sibyl in Tivoli, by Baroque artists, Claude Lorrain gives the environment bathed in the Italian sun classic cachet by adding a dilapidated temple.

"Landscape with the Temple of the Sibyl at Tivoli" (1630-35) Claude Lorrain. Oil on canvas. 38cm × 53cm. National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia.

In the Rococo this landscape painting was further developed and took on a lighter, sweeter character, as can be seen in A pilgrimage to Cythera by Jean-Antoine Watteau.

"A Pilgrimage to Cytheria" (1717). Jean Antoine Watteau. Oil on canvas. 129 cm  x 194 cm, Louvre Paris, France.

Landschappen in de 19e eeuw

In the nineteenth century, the Romantic movement had an enormous influence on landscape art. Dramatic elements had often been a part of landscape paintings, this now became the primary feature of the genre. The French Barbizon School was influential in Europe for much of the century. They combined the study of nature with knowledge of seventeenth-century Dutch painting. Théodore Rousseau, a painter whose works were rejected at the Paris Salons, was one of its founders. The great sense of threat, partly achieved by the sketchy of his brushwork, plays on our emotions in Thunderstorm over Mont Blanc.

"Thunderstorm over Mont Blanc" (1834), Théodore Rousseau. Oil on canvas. 143 x 240 cm. Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen. Denmark.

The Landscape painting early 20th century

Landscape paintings here and now

With the advance of abstract art in the twentieth century, it is difficult to describe an unambiguous development of landscape painting. Yet the genre has become an integral part of contemporary art, perhaps due to the influence of postmodernism and the reappraisal of the artist's history. I would therefore like to conclude with a work that I have recently come to know well. Sunrise II by Marko Klomp is on the one hand a retrospective on the long history of the landscape genre in painting. The high horizon, playing with light, the tension between realism and abstraction, all themes that artists have been working on. At the same time, Marko gives us his very own interpretation of the theme: the landscape has never been treated in this way.

"Sunrise II" (2019), Marko Klomp. Oil on Linen. 80cm x 100cm