My Three Favorite Landscape Painters
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Today, I wanted to write a little art blog about my three favorite landscape painters. I wanted to do more, but I really don’t like landscape painting that much.
Before photographs, landscape paintings were the only way to capture the beauty of nature. There are two types of landscape painters. I am not saying that one type is better than the other.
There is the landscape painter that shows nature as it is. And then, there are the landscape painters that show an idealized form of nature.
Both kinds have their own merits, but I am not here to have an art debate. I just wanted to share my artsy preferences with you. Landscape by its very definition must depict nature. City scenes do not count as landscape.
Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840)
Friedrich was a German Romantic landscape painter. He was famous for his allegorical landscape paintings. He started his life famous, but when Romanticism fell out of fashion, he became poor.
His paintings are meant to invoke an emotion from the viewer. They reflect the loneliness and isolation of the painter, who became a weird recluse in his old age. I first learned about him in school.
It is nice that art classes still bother to show his paintings. Above you can see my favorite painting of his work. It features two men staring at the moonlight. There is a creepy tree framing the moon.
The composition of the painting is designed to draw your eyes towards the moon. The scene is both solemn and intimate. Now, the real question is what those two guys are doing wandering about in the middle of the night.
There is another version of this painting that features a couple staring at the moonlight. It is fun to imagine the story behind a specific painting. Onto, the next piece of artwork.
Ivan Aivazovsky (1817-1900)
I have already written about Aivazovsky. Here is a double take. Aivazovsky was a Russian seascape painter, who was extremely prolific. He painted most of his scenes from memory.
His paintings fall under the realm of romanticism. He was the official painter of the Russian Navy. The bulk of his work feature naval battle scenes. The painting above is one of such scenes.
There is a ship sinking over the horizon. There are some soldiers nearby pointing, while they watch the scene unfold.
The only light source comes from the moonlight in the center of the painting. As you can see, I have a preference for nighttime scenes.
Frederic Edwin Church (1826-1900)
Church was an American landscape painter. He belonged to the Hudson River School. This school was responsible for the creation of the first National Park.
With his colleagues, he traveled all over the American Wilderness recording its beaty, in an effort to preserve it. His family wealth allowed him the freedom to pursue art, from a young age.
At the age of 18, he started to study landscape art underneath Thomas Cole. During his tutelage, he traveled all over New England. His first major sale was a pastoral painting.
Above you can see my favorite painting of Frederic Church. It is a beautiful rendition of an Aurora Borealis. The painting just seems to glow in the darkness. I feel that nighttime scenes are some of the hardest things to paint. I hope you find these three paintings amusing.