Scenery(French Paysage, from pays - country, locality) - a genre of fine art (as well as individual works of this genre), in which the main subject of the image is pristine nature, or nature transformed to one degree or another by man. Modern ideas about landscape have been formed over the centuries with the development of artistic techniques for its depiction. In a landscape work, special importance is attached to the construction of perspective and composition of the view, conveying the state of the atmosphere, air and light environment, and their variability.
Landscape - a genre of painting
Characteristics of the genre
The landscape is relatively young. For centuries, images of nature were drawn only as images of the characters’ habitats, as decorations for icons, and subsequently for scenes of genre plots and portraits.
Gradually, with the development of scientific and experimental knowledge of linear and aerial perspective, chiaroscuro, proportionality, general composition, color, and relief of the image, natural views first became an equal member of the plot composition, and then transformed into the central subject of the image.
For a long period of time, landscape motifs represented generalized, composed, idealized views. A significant breakthrough in the artist’s awareness of the meaning of landscape was represented by his depiction of a specific location (the shore of Lake Geneva, the 15th-century Swiss artist Conrad Witz).
In the global cultural process, landscape as a pictorial genre declared itself, first of all, as European art, despite the existence of ancient Chinese and other eastern traditions of the art of landscape drawing and their influence on European artistic processes.
Landscape works by European masters of the 17th-18th centuries are an integral example of ideal aesthetic views on landscape; the works of the impressionists and post-impressionists were the culmination of the extraordinary development of the landscape genre at the end of the 19th century.
The rise of landscape painting was marked by the development of the plein air landscape, associated with the invention in the 19th century of the method of producing tube paints. The painter could work away from his studio, in nature, in natural light. This significantly enriched the choice of motifs, brought art closer to the viewer, and gave the creator the opportunity to translate his immediate emotional impressions into a work of painting.
If in past times, especially under the dominance of academicism, landscape belonged to a “minor” genre of painting, then, especially starting with the impressionists (with their undoubtedly leading landscape priority) to this day, this direction is represented in the works of many artists and enjoys the enduring interest of amateurs painting. When looking at the best landscape works, you can almost physically feel the blow of the wind, the smell of the sea, the silence of the snow or the rustle of leaves.
Elements, types and characters of the landscape
Landscape usually depicts open space. It usually presents an image of the water and/or earth surface. Depending on the direction - vegetation, buildings, technology, meteorological (clouds, rain) and astronomical (stars, sun, moon) formations.
Sometimes the artist also uses figurative inclusions (people, animals), mainly in the form of relatively fleeting plot situations. In a landscape composition, however, they are given a clearly secondary importance, often the role of staffage.
Depending on the type of motif depicted, rural, urban (including architectural - veduta and industrial) landscapes can be distinguished. A special area is the image of the sea element - a seascape or marina. At the same time, landscapes can be both intimate and panoramic.
In addition, the landscape can be epic, historical, heroic, lyrical, romantic, fantastic and even abstract.
Landscape in the fine arts of Europe
Development of the landscape genre from antiquity to the 20th century
Elements of landscape can be found already in rock paintings of the Neolithic era (Tassilin-Ajer plateau in the Sahara). Primitive craftsmen schematically depicted rivers or lakes, trees and boulders on the walls of caves.
In the art of the ancient Mediterranean, the landscape motif is a fairly common detail in the wall paintings of patrician houses.
However, later, in the art of the Middle Ages, the ideals that inspired ancient artists - the joy of being, physicality, truthfulness - gave way to pictorial forms, primarily in a solid, figurative form, giving an idea of the beauty of the divine: painting was designed to influence the viewer as a silent sermon ( The vast majority of the population did not have access to direct access to the Bible - its translation from Latin appeared only in the 14th century).
Landscape practically disappears from painting for a long time - icon painters almost neglect the background, if necessary depicting nature and buildings in a very schematic and non-volume manner.
Interest in landscape becomes clearly noticeable, starting with the painting of the Early Renaissance - Quattrocento, 15th century. (four hundred years, starting from the thousandth). Many testify to the desire of painters to achieve a harmonious and holistic image of nature and man. Such, for example, is the painting “Procession of the Magi” by the Italian master Sassetta (1392-1450/51).
Landscape motifs began to play an even more important role during the High Renaissance, the Cinquecento (16th century). It is this period, more than any other, that is focused on finding the best possibilities of composition, perspective and other components of painting to convey the surrounding world. Now the landscape seems to be an important element of the picture. The clearest example of this is the famous portrait of Mona Lisa, painted by Leonardo (1452-1519). It is not without reason that it was in this era that the social status of the artist changed diametrically: from a representative of one of the lower classes of traditional society (in the Middle Ages, the artist was assigned to a paint shop), he is transformed into a sociocultural ideal, since it was in his activities that the main cultural ideas, values and ideals of the Renaissance were realized. humanism: freedom, creativity, initiative, self-sufficiency and self-development.
The masters of the Venetian school played a major role in the creation of the landscape genre of this period. One of the first artists in whose paintings nature is the main character was Giorgione (1476/7-1510). The landscape on the canvas “Thunderstorm” is definitely a bearer of feelings and moods. And already in Titian’s (1473/88-1576) early painting “The Flight into Egypt” (1508), the image of nature in the background begins to dominate the scenes shown in the foreground.
The traditions of the Venetian school were also reflected in the painting of Titian’s student, the Spanish artist El Greco (1541-1614). Among the master’s most famous paintings is the landscape “View of Toledo.”
In Northern Europe, starting from the 16th century, landscape also gradually emerged from the field of attraction of other artistic genres. Images of nature occupy an important place in the works of many artists of the Dutch school - Pieter Bruegel (the Elder) (c. 1525-1569), John Vermeer of Delft (1632-1675) and others. Most Dutch landscapes are characterized by a muted color, consisting of light silver, olive-ocher, brownish shades, close to the natural colors of nature.
The realistic art of Spain, Italy and France influenced the further development of landscape painting. The masterly paintings of the great Spanish master Diego Velazquez (1599-1660) testify to the emergence of plein air painting. His work “View of the Villa Medici” conveys the freshness of greenery, warm shades of light sliding along the leaves of trees and high stone walls.
During the period of classicism (17th century), nature was interpreted based on the laws of reason, and its representation in the form of ideal harmony was considered an aesthetic standard (idyllic landscape). Claude Lorrain (1600-1682) and other painters.
Nature appears differently in the paintings of Baroque masters, who strive to convey the dynamics of the surrounding world, the turbulent life of the elements. Landscapes that affirm the joy of being are characteristic of the work of the Fleming Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) (“Landscape with a Rainbow”).
In the 18th century, architectural landscape became widespread, elements of which appeared in the art of the Middle Ages. Representatives of the Venetian school of painting Francesco Guardi (1712-1793) and Canaletto (1697-1768) were remarkable masters of the vedata.
A prominent representative of Rococo art (18th century) was the French artist Francois Boucher (1703-1770), who created landscapes that seemed woven from blue, pink, and silver shades. Another French artist who worked in this style studied with Boucher, Jean Honore Fragonard (1732-1806), whose colorful landscapes are permeated with air and light.
In landscape painting of the Enlightenment era (second half of the 18th century), artists sought to show the viewer the aesthetics of natural nature. Based on field observations and equipped with bright lighting effects, the seascapes of Joseph Vernet (1714-1789) aroused the delight of his contemporaries.
Vernet's painting influenced representatives of the romantic movement that appeared in European and American art in the first half of the 19th century. Significant representatives of the romantic landscape in England were William Turner (1775-1851) and John Constable (1776-1837), in Germany - Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840).
The beauty of simple rural nature was discovered for the viewer by French landscape painters - representatives of the Barbizon school: Theodore Rousseau (1812-1867), Jules Dupre (1811-1889) and others. Close to the art of the Barbizonians is the painting of Camille Corot (1796-1875), who sought to convey the quivering air environment with with the help of valers.
Camille Corot was considered their predecessor by the French impressionists. Plein air landscapes by Claude Monet (1840-1926), Auguste Renoir (1841-1919), Edouard Manet (1832-1883), Camille Pissarro (1830-1903), Alfred Sisley (1839-1899) and others amazingly convey the changing light-air environment .
The traditions of the impressionists were also developed in their painting by post-impressionist artists: Paul Cezanne (1839-1906), Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890), Georges-Pierre Seurat (1859-1891), Paul Signac (1863-1935), etc.
In the 20th century, representatives of a wide variety of artistic movements turned to the landscape genre. Vivid pictures of nature were created by the Fauvists: Henri Matisse (1869-1954), Andre Derain (1880-1954), Albert Marquet (1875-1947), Maurice Vlaminck (1876-1958), Raoul Dufy (1877-1953), etc.
Cubists - Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), Georges Braque (1882-1963), Robert Delaunay (1885-1941) and others executed their landscapes in the form of geometric shapes. The landscape genre was also of interest to surrealists - Salvador Dali (1904-1989) and others, and abstractionists - Helen Frankenthaler (1928-2011) and others.
Representatives of realistic movements invariably remained recognized masters of landscape painting in the 20th century - Rockwell Kent (1882-1971), George Wesley Bellows (1882-1925), Renato Guttuso (1911/2-1987), etc.
Landscape in Russian art
The evolution of landscape painting from romanticism to realism
In Russian art, landscape as a genre of painting appeared at the end of the 18th century. Its founder is considered to be Semyon Shchedrin (1745-1804). Shchedrin's landscape works are built on the stylistic canons of classicism (the use of wings in composition, three-plane color distribution, smoothed texture of writing). In their still conventional beauty, they nevertheless differ significantly from the previously existing “picturesque views” of cities and places of interest in their artistic and emotional expressiveness. It is achieved in a variety of ways by the depth and breadth of distances, the contrasts between the large masses of the foreground and the green-blue expanses opening behind them, which overall gives his landscapes an impressive airiness.
Other pioneers of this genre were the artists Fyodor Matveev (1758-1826), Fyodor Alekseev (1753/55-1824) and other artists, like Shchedrin, who were trained in academic painting in Western Europe.
Classicism continued to occupy a dominant position in the Russian art of landscape painting at the beginning of the 19th century. Matveev (heroic landscapes) and Alekseev (elegiac views of St. Petersburg and Moscow) continue to work; urban views also attract Andrei Martynov (1768-1826).
This direction, however, was gradually increasingly replaced by romanticism. Here it should be noted Sylvester Shchedrin (1791-1830), Vasily Sadovnikov (1800-1879), Mikhail Lebedev (1811-1837), Grigory Soroka (1823-1864), and, of course, Alexei Venetsianov (1780-1847), one of the first which showed the charm of the dim nature of the Central Russian strip.
The most important and oldest type of landscape is the image of pristine nature and countryside. This is the original understanding of the French word “paysage” and the German “Landschaft” (image of a village, image of the land), which over three centuries have become firmly rooted in our language. The industrial landscape, which emerged at the end of the 18th - beginning of the 19th century, as well as the urban landscape, constitute separate directions in the development of landscape painting.
In medieval Europe, the art of depicting nature experienced a certain decline for a long time. Depicting the grape harvest, the Garden of Eden or the end of the flood, the medieval European artist limited himself to only decorative designation of nature, not caring about any visual similarity to the natural world (V.N. Stasevich’s book “Landscape. Picture and Reality”).
The achievements of ancient realism, which came into medieval painting, seem to fade away and degenerate into decorative motifs or extremely conventional designations of the scene of action. This is especially typical for the art of Byzantium. In the 14th century, a certain turn towards realism was noticeable in the art of this country. Accordingly, the image of nature takes on a more specific character.
The influence of Byzantine art spread to Italy and the part of the European continent north of the Alps. Similar principles of depicting trees, mountains and other elements of nature are found in Western European art, including in the frescoes of artists of the Italian Trecento - the period preceding the Renaissance.
Landscapes in European miniature of the 15th century are lyrical images of places familiar to the artist, often very accurately conveying the appearance of a particular landscape and architectural structures.
Since the early Renaissance, artists have been occupied with issues of linear and aerial perspective. Perspective images are used even in relief, which acquires a picturesque character that is not typical for sculpture. Interest in real space gave impetus to the discovery of the laws of perspective
In the 17th century, Holland experienced a surge of spiritual renewal. In this country, genres of art such as still life and landscape are becoming widespread, which presuppose the viewer's ability to enjoy art without religious, historical or heroic reminiscences. Here, for the first time, a realistic landscape as an image of a specific area received wide recognition. Here the sea becomes the hero of the paintings. After all, it was a real breadwinner for the country of sailors and fishermen.
The seascapes of Adrian van Velde are so excellent in their accuracy of depiction of nature, in their sense of light and color, that later art critics began to wonder whether the artist painted his paintings from life.
No less significant are the artistic merits of the works of Albert Cuyp, Jan van Goyen, and Solomon van Ruisdael.
Dutch masters of the mid-century were characterized by painting in similar tones, in brownish-silver or yellowish-silver tones. These tones attracted artists with the opportunity to convey the moisture-saturated air of Holland (Meindert Gobbema, Philipp Wouwerman, Claes Berchem, etc.). Artists loved to paint cloudy skies, when the dim light of the sun penetrates through a thin layer of clouds and evenly envelops nature.
Vermeer's landscape of Delft "View of Delft" can be called real pearls of painting.
But Dutch landscape painters did not limit themselves to a reliable “portrait” of their native land. There were “Italianist” or “novelist” artists who painted Italian landscapes or followed the trends of the “composed” Italian landscape (KlasBerchem, Jan Asseleym, Jan Bot, etc.). A major master of the romantic style was Hercules Seghers, who was followed in his interpretation of nature by Jacob van Ruisdael and Harmenswan Rein Rembrandt. In the landscapes of these artists, Dutch realism is combined with a romantic beginning.
Landscape of Baroque and Classicism. A different attitude towards the image of nature is observed in the Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens. Rubens' art was formed under the strong influence of the Baroque. Baroque is an artistic movement prone to exaggeration, in which a realistic attitude to the objective world coexists freely with fiction. It originated in Italy and spread throughout Europe.
An exceptionally talented artist, Rubens became the head of the Flemish school, and transferred the principles of Baroque to the depiction of nature. When in his later works the artist turned to the image of Flemish nature, he painted a heroic, ideal, collective image. Hence the characteristic panoramic scope of his canvases, coming from the traditions of the 16th century.
But the landscape of the 17th century is not only Holland and Flanders. This genre received a characteristic solution in the art of France, in particular in the works of Nicolas Poussin, Claude Jelle, and Claude Lorrain. The landscapes of Poussin and Lorrain have all the necessary signs of classicism: orderly balance, thoughtful distribution of volumes, tonal and pictorial masses of the composition, fragments of antique columns, statues, and even entire structures reminiscent of ancient architecture, necessary from the point of view of classicism. There are mythological and biblical motifs borrowed from literary monuments of the ancient world and the Middle Ages and introduced into the landscape as staffage to revitalize it and give it a semantic focus.
The classical landscape is called “historical” for its connection with scenes from ancient and medieval history. Unlike the baroque landscape with its elemental heroism, the classic one has the harmony and clarity of nature. A classical landscape is a composed landscape, but composed on the basis of artistic exploration of reality.
In France, by the 30s of the 19th century, a school of artists was emerging - creators of the national landscape. Georges Michel was one of the first to turn to the image of national nature. The nature of “everyday” France, with its birches and poplars, became the theme of Camille Corot’s paintings. He loved to paint the transitional states of evening and morning, avoiding bright contrasts.
A group of Corot's contemporaries - Theodore Rousseau, Leon Dupre, Charles-François Daubigny, Constant Troyon, Narcisse Diaz de la Pena, who were not satisfied with the rational system of the academic landscape - decided on an experiment reminiscent of Constable's experiment. They began to paint the groves, fields, and creeks surrounding Paris. Sometimes they worked together, gathering in the village of Barbizon with Theodore Rousseau. The result of their efforts was a natural, life-true composition of the landscape.
The 20th century introduced something completely new into the history of landscape, breaking with the centuries-old traditions of depicting nature. This is cubism, the first representatives of which were the French artists Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso. Cubism is based on a purely speculative constructive analysis of forms, dividing them into arbitrarily assumed elements or absolutizing their geometric meaning. Cubist landscapes are perhaps less connected with the landscape of reality than the landscapes of past centuries.
In Russia, the 19th century in landscape art began with the gradual conquest of realistic positions. As in Europe, this was expressed in the development of plein air and the national motif. At the beginning of the century, many traditions of classical landscape were still preserved. Russian artists went to Italy for landscapes.
However, the artists of Sylvester Shchedrin’s generation were not satisfied with the static scheme of the classic landscape-scenery with its nameless trees. In an effort to convey the life of nature, they introduce romantic lighting effects into their works, move away from the “scene” composition and brown color, and strive to capture sunlight and the specific character of nature.
Alexander Andreevich Ivanov made a colossal step in this direction. His paintings are characterized by purity and naturalness of color, richness of tonal and color relationships. Ivanov, like his other contemporaries, was attracted to nature by signs of the eternal, not the transitory.
The epic calm of the ideal image prevails even in those cases when Russian artists took the national landscape as a basis and sought to artlessly depict their native nature as it is. These are the landscapes of A.G. Venetsianov, his students G.V. Soroki, I.S. Krylov and other pioneers of the national Russian landscape, who saw the scope and beauty of the “nondescript” Russian nature.
Among these artists, the original phenomenon was represented by the brothers G.G. and I.G. Chernetsovs, the first artists of the Volga. Intending to paint a panorama of both banks of the river, they traveled from Rybinsk to Astrakhan on a special barge and created many original sketches and sketches. One of them is “View of the Syukeevsky Mountains on the Volga in the Kazan Province.”
The real systematic artistic exploration of Russian nature began in the second half of the 19th century, in the work of artists of the 60s. Russian nature, discreet and “not ideal” - swampy lowlands, slushy mudflats, monotonous flatness - became the main character in the landscapes of the Wanderers. Russian artists finally “discovered” their homeland and stopped going to Italy for beauty. They discovered the beauty of the natural manifestation of life and lost the need to look for an “ideal” nature.”
Efim Volkov painted mainly landscapes of northern and central Russia: as the subject of his paintings, he chose not beautiful “landscapes”, but modest corners of the nature of the Russian North, and in them he tried to notice and convey their inherent poetry and charm. He owns many paintings on the theme of a swamp shrouded in foggy haze: “Swamp in Autumn” (1871), “Evening” (1877), “Marsh Swamp” (1878), “Autumn” (1890), “Foggy Morning” (1881), “Landscape with a Swamp” (1898), “Swamp” (1902) and many others. Contemporaries called Efim Volkov “the poet of Russian autumn and Russian fogs.”
In the mid-19th century, the idealizing aesthetics of romanticism and classicism began to become a thing of the past. The national landscape begins to acquire leading importance in Russian art.
The very concept of “national landscape” presupposes a “portrait” of a certain geographically specific nature, characteristic of Holland, France or England. For Russian artists, central Russia became such a landscape for a long time. But, unlike the Europeans, Russian masters often invested social meaning into national motifs.
The nature of the Russian landscape was influenced by the principles of critical realism. Sorrowful motifs are inherent in images of nature not only in the paintings of V.G. Perov (“Seeing Off the Dead Man”) or I.M. Pryanishnikov “Empty”, where the landscape is an accompaniment to the depiction of the negative sides of Russian life.
Characteristic of the Russian national landscape is also an attraction to the epic, in a sense, ideal image of the Russian land, glorious for its forest wealth, wide fields and mighty rivers (I.I. Shishkin).
The beginning of the lyrical Russian landscape is usually associated with the work of A.K. Savrasov and his well-known painting “The Rooks Have Arrived”. At the same time, in other works of Savrasov - “Country Road” or “Rye” - the spirit of romanticism is alive.
The dynamic landscapes of the talented artist F.A. are imbued with a romantic feeling. Vasilyeva. In the film “Swamp in the Forest. Autumn".
Vasiliev’s teacher I.I. set himself a different task. Shishkin. Shishkin believed that “a painting from life should be without imagination.” Shishkin's sunny paintings are not devoid of poetry, a sense of the epic grandeur of nature.
A.I. Kuindzhi, an epic-romantic artist, believed that an artist should paint a landscape “by heart,” relying entirely on creative imagination. With a complete impression of naturalness, his landscapes are distinguished by thoughtful balance. Often the artist introduces an almost stereoscopic image of three-dimensional details in the foreground into the picture. They serve to further emphasize the illusion and scope of space.
Less common in Russian art is the seascape. However, almost every major Russian artist painted the sea. I.K. Aivazovsky went through a long creative path from the romantic to the realistically convincing poem “The Black Sea”, or the magnificent “Waves”. Without overtly romantic effects, A.P. wrote his “water” landscapes convincingly and truthfully. Bogolyubov.
Landscape painting, also known as landscape art, is the depiction of nature in all its forms. These are mainly mountains, valleys, trees, rivers and forests. The main feature is the presence of a wide view, as well as its elements located in a coherent composition. There are different types of landscapes, including rural and urban, sea and river, religious and futuristic.
Types of landscape: the essence
The most popular element of any landscape is the sky. The weather in all its manifestations is also included in the composition. Landscape views in art can be completely imaginary (imaginary) or copied from reality with varying degrees of accuracy. If the main purpose of the image is to represent an actual, specific location, especially buildings, then it will be called a topographical (realistic) view.
The concept of "landscape"
In the visual arts, the term "landscape" comes from the Dutch word landchap(a piece of land) and describes any painting or drawing the main subject of which is the depiction of a picturesque view. Examples include grasslands, hills, mountains, valleys, trees, rivers, forests, coastal views and seas. The painting may be a depiction of a real place, or it may be an imaginary or idealized scene.
The recognition of nature and its choice as a specific subject of art is a relatively recent phenomenon. Until the 17th century, the landscape was limited to backgrounds of portraits or paintings devoted primarily to religious, mythological or historical illustrations. Today, the beautiful view of the landscape continues to be a major theme in art.
Landscape through the centuries
In the work of 17th century artists Claude Lorraine and Nicolas Poussin, the landscape background began to dominate the display of historical events. However, their interpretation of the landscape was somewhat stylized or artificial. They tried to adopt the landscape views of Greece and Rome, and their work became known as the classical landscape. At the same time, some Dutch artists, such as Jacob van Ruisad, were developing a much more naturalistic form of painting based on what they saw around them.
When the arts were classified by the French Academy in the seventeenth century, landscape was placed fourth in importance among the five genres. Nevertheless, landscape painting became increasingly popular in the 18th century, despite the predominance of classical motifs.
Landscape and its position in the hierarchy of genres
Landscape was an established genre in Chinese art by the fourth century AD, but in Western art, landscape painting dates back to the era of Renaissance art in the sixteenth century. Of course, many artists from Roman times and earlier included picturesque landscapes and natural scenes in their paintings, but they were auxiliary elements of the main theme of the painting. The main problem with the landscape was that it was very low in the academic distribution of genres.
The hierarchy of types of fine art during the Renaissance was as follows:
- Historical painting.
- Portrait art.
- Painting, that is, scenes from everyday life.
- Scenery.
- Still life.
These rankings were finally set out in 1669 by the secretary of the French Academy, André Félibien. Thus, the art world, including its patrons, teachers and artists, did not take landscape painting seriously and ascribed greater value to historical works, portraits and genre pictures. Neoclassical and academic schools followed Greek art in giving primacy to the human body, especially the nude.
The Boom of Naturalistic Landscape Design
The nineteenth century saw a veritable surge in naturalistic landscape design, driven partly by the idea that nature was a direct manifestation of God, and partly by the growing alienation of many people from nature due to increasing industrialization and urbanization. As a result, the traditional hierarchy of genres collapsed.
Landscape artists of the 19th century entered into the widespread Romantic movement, and it was at this time that landscape painting finally became a worthy genre in the art academies of Europe and became widespread throughout the world. In the second half of the twentieth century, the definition of landscape was questioned. The genre expanded to urban and industrial landscapes, and artists began to use less traditional means when creating landscape works.
Three Types of Landscape Art
A painting or photograph that depicts nature is called landscape art. Although each artist has his own style, the genre is usually grouped into three broad categories:
- Representational landscape art is the most basic genre. No special colors or filters are used in the details to create an unrealistic effect. In contrast, representational landscape art focuses on the natural beauty of nature and paints a realistic picture of the subject.
- Impressionist landscape art focuses on depicting a realistic scene in an almost unrealistic light. This is achieved through several techniques, including separating the foreground from the background using soft focus, using unusual lighting techniques, or incorporating saturated, bright, or unnatural colors. Impressionist landscape art largely responds to the artist or photographer's eye and ability to create a stunning natural image.
- Abstract landscape art relies less on the environment of the landscape and more on representing the main subject of the image. In an abstract piece, the landscape may be the background, while the foreground may be the focal point of one component, such as an oddly shaped tree branch or the shadow of a large object.
Each style has its own characteristics, varying colors, lighting and props. In landscape paintings, as a rule, additional elements are added besides the landscape itself. Traditionally these are animals and people. The purpose of a landscape piece is to showcase the natural beauty of nature, be it calming, brutal or surreal.
Natural landscapes
Landscape painting refers to a work of art in which the main emphasis is on the depiction of nature (mountains, forests, rocks, trees, rivers, valleys, etc.). The Earth is a wondrous creation, from barren deserts to lush rainforests, from endless oceans to cloudy skies. Throughout history, artists have found inspiration in the mysterious beauty of nature and the majesty of the Earth's varied landscapes.
Cityscape: types of cityscape
Landscape paintings are not limited to images of land and nature. For example, they may also include images of buildings, streets, bridges. This type of landscape is called urban. His sketches may include various historical or modern objects. The views of the cityscape are determined according to what is depicted in the painting. Some of the most attractive are images of palaces and castles, religious monuments, as well as residential buildings of the 17th-19th centuries.
Rural and park landscape
When nature and the results of conscious human activity come together, a certain dissonance is sure to arise. But there is an environment where these two conflicting parties are able to come to an agreement among themselves and achieve relative balance. First of all, these are rural areas and landscape parks, where nature is complemented by architectural elements. The rural landscape has been one of the most popular landscape themes at all times. Artists depicted a house on a hill or near a pond, green meadows with grazing sheep, country roads, and so on.
Topographic landscapes
Flat objects differ from three-dimensional three-dimensional objects, which have length, width and height. One of the options for depicting a landscape is that the image is given a more or less clearly defined relief. This type of landscape is called topographical or sculptural.
Documentary landscapes
Another type of landscape painting is documentary landscapes, which depict scenes from everyday life. The included human figures deserve as much attention as the trees or houses. On the one hand, they add life to the composition, on the other hand, they emphasize the size of the surrounding space in comparison with a person.
Landscapes with animals
A distinctive feature of the landscape is that with their help a feeling of peace, contentment and harmony is created. However, living nature is a continuous movement. Trees, plants, rain, wind - these are all dynamic and changeable factors; in this regard, it is quite natural to place animals among them as an integral component of all living nature.
The views can be very different: the mood landscape symbolizes the lyrical coloring of feelings, the architectural one is very reminiscent of the city, sea (marina) and river show the endless beauty of the water landscape. The historical and heroic types are associated with great warriors, mythical heroes and gods. The decorative landscape serves as an excellent interior decoration. There is no specific number of species. Depending on the artist’s vision, industrial (city views), epic, romantic or even cosmic landscapes are distinguished.
The main feature of this genre of fine art is that the main subject of the image is nature in its original form or transformed by man.
Landscape (from the French pays - country, area) - an image of nature in a work of art. The landscape is included in the system of images of the work (along with portraits, interiors, dialogues, etc.) and can serve as a means of characterizing the inner world of the characters, as well as a means of characterizing their mental movements. In ancient, medieval literature and folklore, images of nature are personified and given personified: the image of the wind, the sun, the moon. At the same time, constant epithets are used: “clear sun”, “blue lightning”, “bloody dawns”. There are no detailed descriptions of natural phenomena in the works. Then the landscape begins to play a more important role in the work of art, harmonizing with the characteristics of each of the artistic movements.
Thus, classicism is characterized by “ideal” landscapes, solemn, majestic pictures of nature, against the background of which an important event or a certain hero is glorified (ode “To the Capture of Ishmael” by G.R. Derzhavin).
The landscape of sentimentalists (E. Jung, T. Gray, J.-J. Rousseau, V.A. Zhukovsky, N.M. Karamzin), cultivating feeling, “the life of the heart” and contrasting nature and civilization, acquires an elegiac, melancholic character . The landscape here is more a means of creating a general background against which the experiences of the lyrical hero are depicted, rather than something valuable in itself. Many images of nature by that time had already become a kind of cliché. Thus, a sentimental landscape contained some obligatory details: it often contained the moon, a forest, a stream, rocks, a seashore, fog, and sometimes ruins, a cemetery (“cemetery poetry” by E. Jung, T. Gray, translations by V.A. Zhukovsky ). Typically, it was night or late evening. This type of landscape is also called “Ossianic”, attributing it to the medieval Gallic bard Ossian. We find a similar landscape at
V.A. Zhukovsky:
Throwing a quiet shine on the wilds, and the valley, and the forest,
Moon on an invisible path
Among the midnight skies
Performs, peaceful, its solitary current.
("The Bard's Song")
Pushkin adopted a similar landscape in his early poetry. We meet him in the poem “Kolna” (“Imitation of Ossian”):
Source fast Kolomony,
Running to distant shores,
I see your indignant waves, like a muddy stream over the rocks, with the brilliance of the night stars, sparkling through the slumbering desert forest,
The roots make noise and water the trees woven into the dark roof.
Kolna loved your mossy shore.
The landscape in the works of the romantics (J. Byron, I. Goethe, V.A. Zhukovsky, A.S. Pushkin, M.Yu. Lermontov) has a different character. This is an exotic landscape: a description of the sea, mountains, powerful, indomitable and uncontrollable natural elements. The characteristic features of the romantic hero were gloom, disappointment, “coldness of soul,” the desire for freedom, rebellion, on the one hand, and the strength of feelings and experiences, on the other. Hence the desire of romantics to escape from the usual, familiar environment. The luxurious and powerful nature of the south has always attracted poets:
God's garden was blooming all around me;
The rainbow outfit of plants kept traces of heavenly tears,
And the curls of the vines curled, showing off between the trees,
Transparent green leaves;
And there are grapes full of them,
Earrings like expensive ones,
They hung magnificently, and sometimes a timid swarm of birds flew towards them.
(M.Yu. Lermontov, “Mtsyri”)
Pictures of southern nature M.Yu. Lermontov also recreates it in prose - in the novel “Hero of Our Time”: “The sun had already begun to hide behind the snow ridge when I entered the Koishaur valley. The Ossetian cab driver tirelessly drove his horses in order to climb Mount Koishauri before nightfall, and sang songs at the top of his lungs. This valley is a wonderful place! On all sides there are inaccessible mountains, reddish rocks, hung with green ivy and crowned with clumps of plane trees, yellow cliffs, streaked with gullies, and there, high, high, a golden fringe of snow, and below Aragva, embracing another nameless river, noisily bursting out of a black gorge full of darkness , stretches like a silver thread and sparkles like a snake with its scales.” However, this landscape is also a photographically accurate picture of the scene.
However, already starting from A.S. Pushkin, the nature of the landscape in Russian literature begins to change. The exotic Caucasian landscape gives way to a realistic description of Russian nature. In the poem “My Ruddy Critic,” a simple, unpretentious landscape illustrates Pushkin’s poetic position:
Look at the view here: a row of miserable huts,
Behind them is black soil, the plains slope gently,
Behind them there is a thick strip of gray clouds.
Where are the bright fields? where are the dark forests?
Where is the river? In the yard by the low fence, two poor trees stand as a delight to the eye,
Only two trees. And then one of them is completely naked in the rainy autumn,
And the leaves on the other, getting wet and turning yellow,
To clog up the puddle, they just wait for Boreas.
In prose, Pushkin’s landscape is distinguished by clarity and laconicism: “The horses ran together. Meanwhile, the wind became stronger hour by hour. The cloud turned into a white cloud, which rose heavily, grew and gradually covered the sky. It began to snow lightly and suddenly began to fall in flakes. The wind howled; there was a snowstorm. In an instant, the dark sky mixed with the snowy sea. Everything has disappeared" (story "The Captain's Daughter").
In the literature of the 19th century, images of nature already pass through the prism of the individual author’s perception of the writer. So, we can talk about the landscapes of I.S. Turgeneva, L.N. Tolstoy, G. Flaubert, C. Dickens, F.M. Dostoevsky, A.A. Feta, F.I. Tyutcheva, I.A. Bunina. Landscapes here are both valuable in themselves and play an important role in revealing the inner life of the characters.
The functions of landscape in a work of art can be different. Thus, landscapes contribute to the author’s realistically accurate depiction of all phenomena of the natural world, place and time of action (“an intrinsically valuable landscape” - “Notes of a Hunter” by I.S. Turgenev). The landscape can serve as a means of characterizing the individual personality traits of a character (the picture of the Manilov estate in the poem “Dead Souls” by N.V. Gogol) or convey the subtle emotional movements of the characters - the image of an oak tree in the epic novel “War and Peace” by L.N. Tolstoy). The landscape can be directly related to the plot course of the narrative (it shades the events taking place, delays the narrative before an important plot twist or climax, acts as an artistic preview, motivates the further course of events - the snowstorm scene in the story “The Captain's Daughter” by A.S. Pushkin has a symbolic meaning , given immediately before Grinev’s acquaintance with the counselor and motivates the characters’ acquaintance). In addition, there is a lyrical landscape that conveys the author’s feelings and creates a certain mood (not directly related to the development of the plot action - the description of the night sky over the Neva in the first chapter of the novel “Eugene Onegin” by A.S. Pushkin). At the same time, landscapes of this type form the image of the author in the eyes of readers. We can also distinguish a symbolic landscape (symbolizes important author’s thoughts, philosophical views - Austerlitz’s description of the sky in the epic novel “War and Peace” by L.N. Tolstoy), a fantastic landscape (fictional or created in the heroes’ dreams - an episode with flowers in Svidrigailov’s dream in the novel “Crime and Punishment” by F.M. Dostoevsky).
Landscape is a genre of painting whose central theme is nature and landscape. The genre was created in China in the 4th century AD. In Western art, landscape was popularized in the 16th century. Until the beginning of the 16th century, the image of nature was not the main theme; it served as a background for images of people and demonstrations of historical events. The canvas had a religious, allegorical, mythological message, and nature was a simple background.
Examples are presented by the works of Leonardo da Vinci, Botticelli, Bellini. Researchers believe that the first “pure” landscape belongs to the brush of Albrecht Altdorfer, created in the first half of the 16th century.
History of the genre
Albrecht Durer and Pieter Bruegel the Elder worked in the 16th century. Spring, mountain and city landscapes were the backdrop for mythological subjects.
In the 17th century, the Dutch and Flemish schools of painting were formed - landscape took a special place in the works of artists. Poussin, Lorrain, and Rubens made their contribution to the development of the genre. Pastoral landscapes are characterized by a special transmission of light and color, perspective, and realism. Rural, urban, and marine themes were popular.
History painting
At the end of the 17th century, artists used people in images, but not as central figures, but to emphasize the scale of the image on the canvas.
In the 18th century, the landscape developed in France, England and other countries of Western Europe. They depict the divine harmony of nature and calm confidence in the current conditions of prosperity. The genre does not occupy a central place in the hierarchy, but is popular among collectors.
After the catastrophic events of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars, landscape became one of the most popular types of fine art. In Russia it became popular in the mid-19th century in the form of natural, rustic types. Representatives of the genre were creative in other areas of fine art, and landscapes were one of the areas of creative interest of artists who worked in oils and watercolors.
The landscape was most popular in commissioned works - sea and mountain, city and country landscapes looked beautiful in classic interiors in the estates of high-ranking persons.
Pastoral in painting
Artists of the 20th century popularized landscape in the styles of cubism, fauvism, expressionism, and hyperrealism. Contemporary works are full of life, color, individualism in the rendering of color and perspective.
Features and types of landscape painting
Translated, the name of the genre means “terrain”; “country” is the environment that surrounds a person in the open air. The environment can be natural or artificial, anthropogenic in origin. Natural objects include bodies of water - lakes, seas, rivers, various types of relief, vegetation, and sky.
Artificial ones include houses and outbuildings, roads, public buildings, gardens, lanterns - everything that is created by man. Nature has been depicted by artists since ancient times, but the separation of landscape into a separate genre made it possible to show individuality in conveying the surrounding world.
Using different criteria, several classifications of landscape painting can be distinguished. According to the level of human participation in creating the landscape, there are:
- Rustic;
- Natural;
- Urban.
Features of ancient Greek vase painting
By the nature of the work they distinguish:
- Epic;
- Heroic;
- Romantic;
- Landscape-mood.
Nature
Natural landscapes began to be painted back in the Middle Ages, but, based on the canons of Gothic fine art, the paintings were devoid of perspective, the image was flat, schematic, inharmonious, and unrealistic. Along with the development of painting styles, the manner of execution of the natural landscape changed. The natural direction includes paintings with celestial bodies and stars. 
Nautical
Marina is a type of landscape with a marine theme. The directions were popularized during the active development of shipping, navigation, and the Great Geographical Discoveries. The most striking example of this type is the work of the 19th century Russian marine painter I. Aivazovsky.
Futuristic
Futuristic fine art is a variety whose adherents paint pictures with images of space flights and fantastic extraterrestrial worlds.
Rustic
The rural or rustic landscape became popular during the development of the Rococo style. Paintings with idyllic images of shepherdesses and rural inhabitants became representative works of their time. The variety developed not only in Western Europe, but also in Russia. The direction of the rural landscape was chosen by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Francois Millet, Camille Moreau. An example of Russian painting is the work of A. Venetsianov, A. Savrasov, V. Polevov, A. Plastov, I. Leeevitan.
Battle painting
Most landscape painters represented the styles of realism, classicism, and romanticism. Contemporary artists in Europe and America also engage in landscape painting.
Urban
City landscapes are represented by works with images of cozy streets, buildings and other structures.
As an offshoot of this species, the “veduta” species appeared in the 17th century and originated in Italy. In essence, this is a detailed image of buildings in the city, down to the smallest detail. The main feature of the subspecies is the accurate representation of all the nuances of the architecture of a house or an entire block. Representative works in the “veduta” direction are paintings by A. Canaletto and J. Vermeer. 
The "ruin" look was developed in many works by artists from the 16th to the 20th centuries. Painters tried to convey the magic and features of abandoned buildings or ruins that are of historical value. For example, the ruins of ancient cities in Great Britain, Greece, Italy, France. Mountain and sea images can be used as a background.
Characteristics of the plot-thematic genre
A fantastic or futuristic cityscape is a painting depicting a fictional city that exists only in the artist’s imagination. By creating canvases, the painters wanted to convey the capabilities of technology and technology, their significance in the future. Most works are painted in oils for rich color reproduction.
Industrial direction - paintings with images of dams, bridges, towers, buildings, factories. Artists focus on the beauty of industrial buildings. One of the first works in the industrial form of landscape is “Gare Saint-Lazare” by Claude Monet.
Park view - spring, summer, winter, autumn images of city park areas are popular among followers of the trend.
Features of the technique
The technical features of the works are influenced by the style in which the artist worked:
- The impressionists paid attention to color and the special transmission of light, perspective, and worked with brushstrokes, creating sunny, spring and winter canvases full of emotions and dynamics.
- Academicists and realists strove for maximum authenticity, used natural colors and shades, and worked in watercolors and oils.
- Baroque masters filled even images of nature with splendor.
- The romanticists made the image bright, joyful, inspiring, springlike.
