The Evolution of Landscape Painting and How Contemporary Artists Keep It Alive

Clair Bremner

  Artists choose landscapes as their subjects for a variety of reasons. In addition to wanting to represent or replicate their obvious beauty, some artists opt to create these depictions to study and explore various aesthetic elements, like light, color, and texture. Additionally, some artists also use scenes of nature as a way to tell a story, illustrate an idea, or conceptualize a metaphor.
 Tracing the genre's evolution and looking at well-known landscape paintings throughout history enables one to visually recognize these differences and understand where contemporary landscape painters may find their inspiration.