| Landscape art, often painted on canvas, is the | | | | ready-mixed oil paints in tubes and the portable |
| depiction of natural scenery like mountains, | | | | box easel became available. The Pre-Raphaelite |
| valleys, trees, rivers, and forests. The main | | | | Brotherhood also made a point to encourage it |
| subject of the painting is a wide view, with its | | | | among artists. |
| elements arranged into a coherent composition. | | | | It took a while in the history of art for landscapes |
| Although the scenery may not be the main focus | | | | to become a popular, established subject matter. |
| of the painting, landscape backgrounds for the | | | | Before the 1700s, landscape paintings were |
| objects and figures can still be an important part. | | | | considered lower in status than portraiture, which |
| The sky is almost always depicted in landscape | | | | patrons tended to value more. Most paintings that |
| art, and weather is often an important element. | | | | depicted things that occurred outside in nature |
| The landscape is a representation, so it has | | | | didn't focus on the nature itself, but on some |
| developed in cultures that have a sophisticated | | | | event that happened there or on individuals or |
| tradition and history of representing other | | | | still-life. The nature was a backdrop, and not the |
| subjects in art. The most advanced examples of | | | | focus on the painting. |
| landscape art exists in Western painting and | | | | Landscape painting goes all the way back to the |
| Chinese art, both going back well over one | | | | 8th century in China, where there's a strong |
| thousand years. | | | | tradition of shan shui ("mountain-water"), an ink |
| Early landscapes were of imaginary scenes, | | | | painting consisting of a "pure" landscape. The only |
| although townscape views represented actual | | | | sign of life in these paintings is a single sage, or a |
| cities, with varying degrees of accuracy. Various | | | | glimpse of his hut. Landscape backgrounds |
| techniques were used to simulate the randomness | | | | became more and more sophisticated in China as |
| of natural forms in invented compositions. Degas, | | | | the centuries went by, until it became a classic |
| for example, created cloud forms from a | | | | and much-imitated form of art. Most of time |
| crumpled handkerchief held up against the light, | | | | Chinese landscape painting, like in Roman times, |
| and Alexander Cozens used random ink blots to | | | | consisted of grand panoramas of imaginary |
| form the basic shape of an invented landscape, | | | | scenes, usually backed with a range of |
| which he elaborated upon. | | | | spectacular mountains. |
| Most experts believe that "The Miraculous Draught | | | | It takes a great deal of technical expertise to |
| of Fishes," painted by Konrad Witz in 1444, is the | | | | paint a good landscape. Perhaps the reason for |
| first Western rural landscape. It had a distinctive | | | | that is that artists have to capture a |
| background view across Lake Geneva to the Le | | | | three-dimensional view on a two-dimensional |
| Môle peak. At first, artists would make drawings | | | | space. The challenges of perspective, color, and |
| and watercolor sketches of natural settings, and | | | | composition had to be overcome. When they |
| then take them inside to do the actual painting. | | | | were, mostly due to the innovation and creativity |
| Painting en plein air, or outside, didn't become | | | | of the artists, it became an important genre in its |
| widely practiced until the 1870s, when | | | | own right. |