Landscapes Across the World

 Introduction:

    Artists use their talent to represent a piece of themselves through their work. Whether it is apparently obvious to us or not, there is often some kind of deeper meaning behind the work itself that influenced the artist's intentions and how they went about creating the piece; from the medium to the subject matter. The background of landscape paintings can often be quite ambiguous when we are looking at them. At first glance, we may only see a field and some clouds, but often there is more of a story to be told than we originally suspected. Landscapes have been a consistent style of artwork throughout thousands of years but each culture and individual artist have had their own unique intentions behind the purpose for their captured or created moment in nature. While landscape paintings can be wonderful to look at and appreciate simply from a visual perspective, we must delve into the artist’s given intentions for the piece as well, if we are ever to view and experience it in the way it was intended to be. How have landscapes differed throughout the generations and where can we see the artist's reflections of their own lives and cultures within their periodic landscapes? This curation showcases a number of landscapes from different artists and periods, and will hopefully give you a deeper appreciation for the artwork through the discovery of the story behind the painting itself.

Title: Evening: Landscape with an Aqueduct

Artist: Théodore Gericault (French, Rouen 1791–1824 Paris)

Date: 1818

Medium: Oil on canvas

Dimensions: 98 1/2 x 86 1/2 in. (250.2 x 219.7 cm)

Classification: Paintings

Credit Line: Purchase, Gift of James A. Moffett 2nd, in memory of George M. Moffett, by exchange, 1989

Accession Number: 1989.183

This is a unique piece that stands out from the broad spectrum of Gericault’s work. He, for the most part, drew and painted portraits of people and modern events from his time. The original purpose behind this work and a similar painting that was hung next to it was to be wall panels in a friend of Gericault’s house. He was not known as a landscape artist, and there is not much other work of his that can be drawn to this specific piece. His motivation behind this piece, other than a favor for a friend, was to create his own representation of what he thought a visually pleasing, perfect landscape would look like. It was not a replication of a real place, but a figment of his imagination, represented in a showcasing of his talent and creativity.

Title: Bridge over a Pond of Water Lilies

Artist: Claude Monet (French, Paris 1840–1926 Giverny)

Date: 1899

Medium: Oil on canvas

Dimensions: 36 1/2 x 29 in. (92.7 x 73.7 cm)

Classification: Paintings

Credit Line: H. O. Havemeyer Collection, Bequest of Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, 1929

Accession Number: 29.100.113

Monet had a love for nature and the things that grew with it. On his property in Giverny, there was a pond filled with water lilies with a bridge leaping over it, surrounded by an assortment of plants and trees. He believed this to be truly beautiful and wanted to capture this beautiful site, preserving it in his art for all to see. He was fascinated by the way the light reflected off of the water and illuminated the bright plants around it. He aimed to preserve the beauty of his garden, highlighting the features that stood out most to him.

Title: Landscape

Artist: Wang Xuehao (Chinese, 1754–1832)

Period: Qing Dynasty (1644–1911)

Date: 1824

Culture: China

Medium: Folding fan mounted as an album leaf; ink on paper

Dimensions: Image: 12 × 23 5/8 in. (30.5 × 60 cm)

Classification: Paintings

Credit Line: Lent by a private collection

Accession Number: L.2016.67.42

To the Chinese artists of the Qing Dynasty, Landscape paintings were meant to tell a story. They were unique to their culture and could be reflected on by those viewing it. It should have instilled pride and cultural significance to the Chinese people viewing them at the time of their creation. This painting specifically, was made to represent Chinese heritage and stylization from the past that remains to be powerful and speaks to their unique culture throughout the years. Wang Xuehao meant for this piece to invoke feelings of reminiscence and pay homage to the Chinese artists who came before him.

Title: A Brazilian Landscape

Artist: Frans Post (Dutch, Haarlem 1612–1680 Haarlem)

Date: 1650

Medium: Oil on wood

Dimensions: 24 x 36 in. (61 x 91.4 cm)

Classification: Paintings

Credit Line: Purchase, Rogers Fund, special funds, James S. Deely Gift, and Gift of Edna H. Sachs and other gifts and bequests, by exchange, 1981

Accession Number: 1981.318

Frans Post’s landscapes of the Brazilian countryside came from a desire from the Dutch public to visualize their country’s colonies that they could not see themselves. The people were interested in what their country was doing overseas and wanted to be able to experience it in the only way possible for them; through paintings. Knowing of this “need” amongst the Dutch, Post gathered sketches and drawings from his time in the Dutch territories in Brazil to create landscape paintings such as this one; representing what life in Brazil was like, from the plants, animals, and even people that occupied the country, as a source of education and entertainment for his fellow countrymen who had not had the opportunity to witness it for themselves. Owning one of these landscapes gave its owner a sense of pride that they were still holding onto a piece of the Dutch colonies of Brazil, even after they lost their territories to the Portuguese.

Title: Wall painting: Polyphemus and Galatea in a landscape, from the imperial villa at Boscotrecase

Period: Early Imperial, Augustan

Date: last decade of the 1st century BCE

Culture: Roman

Medium: Fresco

Dimensions: H. 73 3/4 in. (187.33 cm.)

width 47 in. (119.38 cm.)

Classification: Miscellaneous-Paintings

Credit Line: Rogers Fund, 1920

Accession Number: 20.192.17

To the Imperial Romans, the mythological stories passed down for generations held extreme cultural and hereditary value. These stories were the explanation of how life as they knew it had come to be. This landscape does not only set a stage but it tells a story. It is simultaneously showing two different events in the life and struggle of Polyphemus. Giving visual reality to the stories told amongst the Romans was a powerful way to represent their history and culture, representing who they perceived themselves to be while attempting to explain where they came from as a society.

Title: Landscape

Artist: Albert Pinkham Ryder (American, New Bedford, Massachusetts 1847–1917 Elmhurst, New York)

Date: 1897–98 (?)

Culture: American

Medium: Oil on canvas

Dimensions: 9 1/2 x 14 in. (24.1 x 35.6 cm)

Credit Line: Gift of Frederick Kuhne, 1952

Accession Number: 52.199

Albert Pinkham Ryder’s work holds extreme importance, given the fact that he was an American painter whose works were shown in the same venues as those of Van Gogh, Manet, and Cezanne. Coming from an entirely different cultural background, this was an impressive feat for an American at the time. His view of his landscape paintings was bordering abstraction more than the average landscape. He meant for the familiarity of the landscape to work as a bond between the viewer and the painting while using hints of abstraction to remove the reality aspect from the work, taking its viewers to a completely new place. Ryder wanted his work to be an experience, invoking feelings of a unique untethering of reality, leading you into a familiar, yet undiscovered place.