Comforting Separations

Oftentimes, artists will divide their pieces into segments, through the means of hard line breaks, variations of depth, or even color shifts to create a sense of stability and comfort within the viewer. This may be through vertical or horizontal divisions, but with multiple sections of a painting working together to create a unified, cohesive piece, a feeling of order soothes the viewer and causes them experience peace while looking at the piece. Artists will also utilize warm color palettes in conjunction with the division of their piece to draw the viewer into a further sense of ease and comfort. So how can simple separations within an artwork actually calm the viewer? Why do these aligned compositions evoke such a feeling?

            This paper seeks to find the answer to these questions through various landscape paintings created between the 17^th and 19^th Century. The focal point of this paper is Albert Bierstadt, a famous German-American landscape painter from the 19^th Century. Bierstadt was very well-known for his immense, idyllic landscape paintings that truly captivated viewers. This exhibit will be in chronological order, following French artists’ paintings in the 1630’s up to Albert Bierstadt, who painted in the mid- to late-1800’s. Though all of these paintings are aligned and composed differently, their similar utilization of color palette and divisions through depth ties all these pieces together.

Claude Lorrain, The Ford, possibly 1636, oil on canvas, 28.117

Claude Lorrain employs a dark-green and blue color palette to ease the viewer and draw about a sense of pleasant tranquility. Working alongside the serene color palette, Lorrain presents the use of seamless segmentation to comfort the viewer. Though the trees sticking up in the left half of the landscape seem to shatter the flow of vision, they actually begin the flow. Disrupting the blue sky, the trees immediately draw the eye; following the trees down to the ground introduces the first division. The dark-green and light-brown colors work well to show a calm foreground which is nestled nicely beside a shaded blue river. The transition from deep green to the shaded blue of the river both comforts the viewer and displays two distinct sections of this painting. In following the river upstream, the colors begin to fade lighter and lighter; eventually, there is a small distinction between the river and the light-blue sky. Lorrain exemplifies perfectly how color palette and line breaks create a flow of natural comfort.

Claude Lorrain, Sunrise, possibly 1646-1647, oil on canvas, 47.12

Once again, Claude Lorrain shows his skill in being able to create such a comforting and smoothly flowing painting. The employment of a light- and dark-green color palette mixed with the soft blues of the sky and the water in the foreground really enhances the sections of this artwork. The shift from dark-green on the far side of the river bank, to light-green and blue beyond the hillside truly creates a painting that is visually divided in half. This almost perfect horizontal division exemplifies stability and order within art. There is a clear separation between foreground and background with obvious spatial depth. Since every aspect of this painting has clear lines and distinctions of depth, the viewer is not left searching to piece parts together; the viewer’s eye can rest easily and flow from one feature of the painting to another.

Thomas Gainsborough, Wooded Upland Landscape, probably 1783, oil on canvas, 06.1279

Gainsborough, an 18^th century British painter, also chooses to organize this painting in a very horizontally divided fashion. Though he does not employ such distinct lines and color variations to show the division of his piece, Gainsborough’s painterly brushwork style still conveys an aura of tranquility and calmness within the viewer. Gainsborough’s soft color palette of blue-greens produces an aesthetically pacifying sense; he also seeks to put the viewer at peace by showing a distinct horizontal dissection of this artwork. The darker trees in the very middle of the painting separate the foreground from the lighter blue background. The obvious distinction between foreground and background does not leave the viewer searching for something to use as a scale of size, but rather allows the viewer to trust the background as truth and accurately sized. This is one way that spatially organized paintings create a sense of stability and permanence within the viewer.

Albert Bierstadt, The Rocky Mountains, Lander’s Peak, 1863, oil on canvas, 07.123

Bierstadt continues this theme of stability and comfort within the viewer through a soothing color palette and an organized, divided layout of the landscape. Here, the painter chooses to separate this painting into defined thirds which span horizontally. The bottom third is a light-green plain in the foreground, the middle third is a darker green sloping hillside, and the top third is filled with the light-blue looming mountains in the background. The combination of equal thirds and a soft, earthy color palette seems to purge the viewer of any anxieties and tribulations they are experiencing. The overall composure and serenity of this painting allows the viewer to absorb the beauty and peace of the landscape and then direct attention to specific details of the Native American tribe working busily in the foreground.

Albert Bierstadt, Merced River, Yosemite Valley, 1866, oil on canvas, 09.214.1

Though less perfectly divided as his previous work, Lander’s Peak, Bierstadt again employs the separation of this painting into thirds. The grassy foreground, mountainous background, and clouded sky control separate color palettes yet show much stability through depth and scale. The warmth of the sunlight coming through the clouds onto the field, water, and mountains eases the viewer into a feeling of peace and comfort. In addition, the obvious distinction between the depths of the thirds allows the viewer to calmly observe this piece without having to search for order or to create order out of nothing.

Albert Bierstadt, Sunrise on the Matterhorn, after 1875, oil on canvas, 66.14

Albert Bierstadt uses a very comforting, light-hearted color palette of variations of pinks and greens to ease the viewer of anxieties and troubles. The proportions of the sloping, dark-green hillside in the foreground with the Matterhorn illuminated by a rising sun give this painting a sense of unconventional stability. Although the divisions of this artwork are not as horizontal and equal as Bierstadt’s Rocky Mountains, Lander’s Peak, the utilization of separate parts of a painting coming together to create a unified, coherent piece sets my eyes at ease. Though the beautiful Matterhorn takes up most of the visual space, the dark foreground immediately grabs the viewer’s attention because it is offset by the lighter pinks and greens. However, once the viewer is done briefly inspecting this dark hillside, the Matterhorn and the surrounding beautiful landscape are all that is left for the viewer to examine and behold