Benjamin Jaffe Gallery
Chicago, IL
benjamin
Landscapes, Cityscapes, Seascapes, and Industrialscapes, make up a genre of art that centers around the outdoor environment becoming the central subject of the artwork. The Landscape is defined as an artwork depicting a image of natural scenery. The genre has many variations throughout time and different cultures but owes it's deepest debt to Asian artists. Landscape painting has been called "China's greatest contribution to the art of the world", and recieves its special character to the Taoist (Daoist) tradition in Chinese culture. There are increasingly sophisticated landscape backgrounds to figure subjects showing hunting, farming or animals from the Han dynasty onwards, with surviving examples mostly in stone or clay reliefs from tombs, which are presumed to follow the prevailing styles in painting, no doubt without capturing the full effect of the original paintings.
16th Century Japanese Abbey wall panels
The Hudson River School
The Hudson River School was a mid-19th century American art movement embodied by a group of landscape painters whose aesthetic vision was centered around a purist landscape. Hudson River School artists believed that nature in the form of the American landscape was an ineffable manifestation of devine creation. They shared a reverence for America's natural beauty with contemporary American writers such as Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Fredrick Church expanded the reach of the Hudson River style to a global wilderness vision that included trips to the Arctic and the Amazon in search of extreme subjects for his paintings.
Cotopaxi by Fredric Church 1862
Painters such as Georgia O'keefe began to compose intimate images of urban scenery which has come to be known as Cityscapes. O'keefes work extended the mood of the expressionists before her to include a uniquely modern vision.
East River by Georgia O'keefe 1929
PHOTOREALISM in Landscape painting
Richard Estes has focuses on the reflected image of the city in his work.
Photographic Landscapes
William Henry Jackson 1860
Monolith by Ansel Adams Silver Gelatin Print 1940
Vincent Van Gogh is one of the most celebrated artists of all time, but he died penniless without selling a single painting. Today his work has set records at auction for as much as 100's of millions for a single work. Below is the last artwork he created before his tragic death.
'Crows over a wheat Field' by Vincent Van Gogh
Edward Hopper developed a style of cityscape that centered around alienation and mood.
Nighthawks by Edward Hopper 1950
In Jerry Uelsmann's surrealistic landscapes a dreamlike world uncovers before us. What do you think he means by blending a house with a tree?
The use of Landscape is prevelent throughout history. Through the exploration of the environment as a subject of representation, create a finished work responding to how you see the landscape or cityscape. Study the history of Landscape from Chinese scrolls to the Hudson River School to Ansel Adams, then create a list of places that might make a good subject.
• Examine geographic locations, across different cultures. The use of the landscape as a genre is universal and enduring.
Why is the Landscape universal?
• Discover through hands on exploration how Landscapes are created to describe or reflect a specific place.
What place might you select to represent a specific mood for your artwork?
• Understand how Landscape is a unique style of artistic communication and can transcend language and culture.
What does your landscape or cityscape say about you? What were you trying to say? How successful were you in communicating this idea?
Benjamin Jaffe Gallery
Chicago, IL
benjamin