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Landscape art depicts scenery such as mountains, valleys, trees, rivers, and forests. Sky is almost always included in the view, and weather usually is an element of the composition.
In the first century A.D., Roman frescoes of landscapes decorated rooms that have been preserved at Pompeii and Herculaneum .
Traditionally, landscape art depicts the surface of the Earth , but there are other sorts of landscapes, such as Moonscape s, for example.

, ''Strolling About in Spring'', c. 600.]], ''The Harvesters'', 1565: Peace and agriculture in a pre-Romantic ideal landscape, without sublime terrors]]
, Indian Summer, Vermont. Metcalf painted large scale landscapes en Plein-air .]]
(Jane Schenthal Frank, 1918-1986), ''Aerial Series: Dorado no. 2'', 1970: An example of Aerial Landscape Art , acrylic and mixed materials on apertured double canvas, 35"x47". Notice that in this kind of landscape, there is no horizon and no sky.]]

The word ''landscape'' is from the Dutch , ''landschap'' meaning a sheaf, a patch of cultivated ground. The word entered the English vocabulary of the connoisseur in the late 17th century.

Early in the fifteenth century, landscape painting was established as a Genre in Europe, as a setting for human activity, often expressed in a religious subject, such as the themes of the ''Rest on the Flight into Egypt'', the ''Journey of the Magi'', or ''Saint Jerome in the Desert''.

The Chinese tradition of "pure" landscape, in which the minute human figure simply gives scale and invites the viewer to participate in the experience, was well established by the time the oldest surviving ink paintings were executed.

In Europe, as of harmony and order, which might be retrieved.

As explorers, naturalists, mariners, merchants and settlers arrived on the shores of Atlantic Canada in the early centuries of its exploration, they were confronted by what they saw as a hostile and dangerous environment and an unforgiving sea. These Europeans tried to cope with the daunting new land by mapping, recording and claiming it as their own. Their understanding of the specific nature of this land and its inhabitants varied greatly, with observations ranging from highly accurate and scientific to outlandish or fantastic. These observations are documented in the landscape artworks they produced. The best examples of Canadian landscape art can be found in the works of the Group Of Seven ."Landscapes" in Virtual Vault , an online exhibition of Canadian historical art at Library and Archives Canada


RELATED ''-SCAPES''

  • Vedute is the Italian term for ''view'', and generally used for the painted landscape, often cityscapes which were a common 18th century painting thematic.

  • Skyscape s or Cloudscape s are depictions of clouds, weatherforms, and atmospheric conditions.

  • Moonscape s show the landscape of a moon.

  • Seascape s depict oceans or beaches.

  • Riverscape s depict rivers or creeks.

  • Cityscape s or townscapes depict cities (urban landscapes).

  • Hardscape s are paved over areas like streets and sidewalks, large business complexes and housing developments, and industrial areas.

  • Aerial Landscape s depict a surface or ground from above, especially as seen from an airplane or spacecraft. (When the viewpoint is directly overhead, looking down, there is of course no depiction of a horizon or sky.) This genre can be combined with others, as in the aerial Cloudscape s of Georgia O'Keeffe , the aerial Moonscape s of Nancy Graves , or the aerial Cityscape s of Yvonne Jacquette .

  • Inscape s are landscape-like (usually Surrealist or Abstract ) artworks which seek to convey the psychoanalytic view of the mind as a three-dimensional space. sources on this statement, see the Inscape (visual Art) article.



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