10/02/2013

Liven Up A Room With The Help Of Famous Landscape Painters

By Angel Dudley


An interesting painting can brighten up any drab-looking room and get your guests talking. If you want to be able to look at a painting and be spirited away to another place and time as well, you can't go wrong with paintings of landscapes, whether these are of familiar or exotic places. Through the ages, famous landscape painters have managed to inspire dreams of faraway places with their work.

A landscape painting usually shows a scene from afar, so that you have a wide view rather than the close-up view of a portrait. Most of these paintings have nature as their subject matter, whether it's wild and rugged mountains or agricultural fields. Houses, animals and human activities may be included too. One element that is present in most cases is the sky.

Since the first artist dabbed some paint onto a cave wall, people have depicted landscapes in their art. Early artists often painted scenes from daily life, like hunting. In ancient Rome it was popular to depict places that only existed in the artist's imagination. The Chinese also idealized nature by painting dreamscapes that didn't actually exist.

In the Middle Ages, artists more often depicted religious scenes with a more close-up view. However, from around the 14th Century landscapes became increasingly popular. The Dutch Golden Age of art was also a boom time for landscapes and artists like Esaias van de Velde, Jan van Goyen, Jacob van Ruisdael, Pieter de Molyn and Aelbert Cuyp specialized in the genre. Anthony van Dyck was one of the Dutch painters who introduced this specialty to England, where later on the leading landscape artists included JMW Turner, John Constable and Samuel Palmer.

As people moved to the New World, artists found inspiration in these unexplored territories as well. An example is Thomas Cole, who in 1825 journeyed along the Hudson River and into the Catskills. His paintings were among the first of the Hudson River School. This group of artists also included Cole's friend Asher Durand and his pupil Frederic Edwin Church, among others.

Not all famous landscapes were painted by artists specializing in the genre. 'View of Arco', for instance, is a watercolor done by Albrecht Durer, best known for his religious paintings and engravings. Vincent van Gogh's dreamy 'The Starry Night' and broody 'Wheatfield with Crows' were very different from the portraits and still lives he usually tended to paint. Georgia O'Keeffe's New Mexico scenes are among her best work.

To find landscapes by famous artists, the best place to look is at art auctions. You'll also find works in leading galleries. However, be aware that these pieces are incredibly expensive and beyond most people's budgets.

If your budget is more modest, buying a print of an original painting is a good option. You can get prints of works by famous landscape painters from galleries or online. The museum shops at art museums also have prints of the works they display and these look wonderful when framed.




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