Art History 21

Early Landscape photography used the same principles as painters in order to create pieces of art. Before the 18th Century, artists used landscapes as backdrops and as a frame for the principal subject. Towards the later part of the century, however, artists such as Nicolas Poussin started to romanticize the environment, instead using it as a principle subject in paintings.

In her third chapter of the 2010 textbook Look! The Fundamentals of Art History, Anne D’Alleva argues that when art is examined, it should be seen as a part of society and not just a product of society. By explaining the idea that contextual analysis examines the social, political, spiritual and economic significance she explores the challenge of performing a historical analysis on a piece of art stripped of its original societal and cultural context. D’Alleva’s purpose is to highlight this discourse through examples to provide a better process for interpretation of art. Her audience remains as those exploring art and its impact on culture, namely academically, positioning herself distant from the material exempt when providing examples. The

In Thomas Cole’s Essay on American Scenery, the reader is able to appreciate Cole’s predilection and love for the American scenery. It is his belief this scenery is superior to the European scenery, since the latter’s “primitive features of scenery have long since been destroyed or modified … to accommodate the tastes and necessities of a dense population.” However, Cole presents his audience with a gloomy prophecy about America’s future, which he believes will be the same as Europe’s. Still, while acknowledging that industrialization could eventually take over many natural regions, Cole is hopeful that nature will remain victorious, since it will still be predominant. Because of this, he advises the American people to take advantage of

Humanity is but a facet of the sublime macrocosm that is the world’s landscapes. In the relationship between man and landscape, nature is perpetually authoritarian. In her free-verse poems, The Hawthorn Hedge, (1945) and Flame-Tree in a Quarry (1949), Judith Wright illustrates the how refusal to engage with this environment is detrimental to one’s sense of self, and the relentless endurance of the Australian landscape. This overwhelming force of nature is mirrored in JMW Turner’s Romantic artwork, Fishermen at Sea (1796). Both Wright and Turner utilise their respective texts to allegorise the unequal relationship between people and the unforgiving landscape.

Both William Wordsworth and John Muir use imagery to express their relationships with nature. In paragraph two of The Calypso Borealis, Muir describes the environmental obstacles he encounters when he sets off to find the elusive flower: “fording streams more and more difficult to cross and wading bogs and swamps that seemed more and more extensive and more difficult to force one's way through.” Muir’s choice of words helps the reader imagine how difficult and harsh the environment was as

Daniel Ridgway Knight was an odd American artist who loved to paint relaxed French peasants in luscious landscapes. Ironically, he lived during a stressful time when the Industrial Revolution displaced numerous farmers and polluted the environment. He seemed to ignore the harsh truth and shut himself in his imaginary serene world. For instance, In the Premier Chagrin, translated as The First Grief, Knight paints two healthy girls conversing on a stone wall in front of gorgeous fields. At first, it appears as merely a pretty painting that is nicely contrasted to show depth and realism. Yet, with a closer look, this contrast in the colors and lines of the landscape and the figures creates tension to suggest the painter’s conflict between longing for serene freedom and feeling trapped within the stiff society.

“Manifest Destiny” stretches a process of cultivation that naturally occurred over one hundred years into one single elegant painting. The painting has a natural transition across the frontier, from the right to the left, in chronological order of expansion. In the top right of the art piece a river lazily bends and twist along flat, barren land. Dotting the banks of the river, if someone looks closely, they can notice specks of ships sailing the river. Just the idea and challenges of moving people, livestock and raw materials to an unknown land shows the huge amount of dedication, and a crucial step, in developing America. The basin that the river is painted in is also bathed by warm sunlight flowing from a newly risen sun. Just as the sun painted in the picture looks bright and new, so did the hopes and dreams of the Americans painted. From the first corner of the painting, we begin to see the frontiersmen develop a land unknown to them.

The illustration in #7.16, Trestle Work, Promontory Point, Salt Lake Valley by Andrew J.Russell is an image of a railroad track connecting two paths with men working on the site. Russell believed that the west was a great location to conduct his work because of the openness and freedom that was out there. Also to observe the natural scenery that it has to offer, which many have traveled to obtain such freedom and visual aspects of nature. As for #7.17, El Eaches or Three Brothers by Carleton E. Watkins is a description of a landscape winter forest by a lake, his purpose for this image was to capture the viewer's attention with the richness and the detail of the forest. For an individual to absorb the composition of the mountains in the picture

I am analyzing the form and content of a stylized painting entitled The Palisades by John William Hill. This was found in the collection section of themetmusuem.org which was painted during the pre Raphaelite movement; when artist emphasized meticulous detail in what was observed rather than imagined nature. This artwork shows the aesthetics of nature, depicting a peaceful scenery with spacious green acres during the year of the 1870s. During the late 18th centuries, natural resources weren’t highly industrialized and that in itself shows how nature was essential for all human species. I argue that this painting shows how everything in nature connects and communicates with one another.

Prior to the 19th century, most of the world’s economies had been largely based on agriculture. Farming was a laborious enterprise, and resulted in the vast majority of people to reside in the rural communities. The economy shifted, and industrialization basically remade every aspect of society. During the industrial revolution, new efficiencies caused people to migrate to the cities, otherwise they were faced with unemployment. Those that relocated, experienced urban culture, leisure and middle-class status. The transition was horrific for the poor - miserable housing, unclean water, and minimal heal care. According to some art historians, Constable was responding to shifts. As the cities grew, those who had become rich from the industrial boom, began to look to the countryside as a dream, a place where the water and air was pure, a place of one’s childhood. Constable’s art was intended for the wealthy urban elite, permitting them to escape the evils of modern urban life through his landscapes.

In the early nineteenth century, many in this country were searching for an art they could call their own. Painter, poet, and essayist, Thomas Cole responded to this quest by creating pristine landscape paintings unlike any yet seen in America. For the purpose of this project, I chose an art piece by Cole called, “Landscape, the Seat of Mr. Featherstonhaugh in the Distance” created in 1826. The reason I chose this specific painting was because of its diverse context, which allowed me to identify various concepts related to visual perception. The first concept I identify was figure-ground segregation. Figure-ground segregation refers to the perceptual separation of an object from its background (CITE). That is, the figure being the object that attracts attention and is more memorable than the ground. In the landscape artwork we can see how the cows specially the two closer to us seem to be caught more of our attention than almost anything else in the painting(e.g. the grass). In this painting the cows are the figure that stands out from its ground, which would be the grass. Similarly, we can apply this concept to the big tree on the left side of the cows in the front. The big tree can also be considered to be the figure as it stands out from the grass as well. Further, the trees further down in the painting that seem to form kind of an island can also fall into this category given that the group of tress are standing in the middle of the ground which in this case is the

Since the Renaissance Era the public had been craving detail scenic views of the land. With the help of the camera obscura, lithographs, engravings, and photography the landscape of distant land were becoming available to everyone. The goal for many European landscape photographers was to document and provide historical information. After improvements to the calotype process many governments or sponsored organizations offered campaigns for photographers to capture certain shots. In 1851 five photographers: Edouard Denis Baldus, Hippolye Bayard, Le Gray, Henri Le Secq, and O. Mestral were sent throughout France by the Belgian Treasury to capture France’s architectural patrimony. They took pictures of crumbling and old churches, bridges, and

In the article “Cezanne in the Wild”, (September 2006) the author Richard Shiff, analysis the different points of view and Cezanne connection to nature effect his work, “I paint as I see, as I feel, and I have very strong sensations” page 605. The author entails, Cezanne critics each discussing the artist style of painting and their points of view of Cezanne representation of nature and its impact. Each critics examines his style, Maurice Denis focused on aesthetic vision interpreting and discusses the representation of nature bonding with paints and color. Denis states that Cezanne did not to reproduce but he could represent his subjects, focusing on emotion.

Throughout his work, Monet maintained an imaginative grasp of the essential structure and pattern of the subject he was painting.  Other artists such as Boudin, Jongkind, and Courbet had a strong influence on this ability of Monet’s, which can be recognized in his landscape paintings made during the fifteen-year span of 1865-1880.[7] He was capable of extracting meaningful design from apparently casual scenes, thereby emphasizing the true nature of a place.  This manner of illustration can be seen in Impression, Sunrise—he places an accent on the fogginess of the harbor that is created by the smoke from the steamboats, which relates to its chief status as a major trading port.

(1) Impressionist chooses themes from everyday life and painting outdoors. The goal was to get a representation of a spontaneous and direct world, and for that they focused on the effects of natural light on objects. They mainly focus on light, moment and the space. The abstract- impressionist used reason and intellect, divided into figurative and non-figurative, the non-figurative had no known forms they are pure images coming from the author 's mind. It is mechanical and can be cold. Figurative abstraction uses real forms but distorted and simplified even to lose its basic characteristics -it is free- might please the eye, because the author seeks to convey our emotions without seeking cosmetic beauty - are simplified geometrics forms , without any apparent order nor purpose. This being said one can conclude that Claude Monet 's (an impressionist) painting “Coquelicots” has been called landscaping painting because it reflects a scene from nature. His painting doesn’t show great detail on people’s faces nor does shows details on “things”, rather his painting focuses on the moment that the artist tries to express in his work. Through Claude Monet’s painting one can easily guess the time in history where the painting took place.