Landscapes in Art, Part 1

ASLA staff
Vincent van Gogh, Cypresses, 1889, oil on canvas / image: The Metropolitan Museum of Art

When we asked Professional Practice Network (PPN) members for their favorite portrayal of a landscape in a work of art, we welcomed answers from any medium: paintings, movies, literature, and anything else our members might want to highlight. The answers received covered a diverse range of provenances and forms, and many were very enthusiastic. As one respondent succinctly put it: “So many! Love those that express the emotion of unique landscape experiences.”

Paintings and painters were the most popular type of response, with Monet and Van Gogh as the two clear favorites. However, many other artists and works were mentioned, and they are highlighted below. This post focuses on 2D art: paintings, photography, posters, and prints. Next time, we’ll review responses that covered everything from films to music to video games. (For even more information in this vein, check out Some Landscapes’ chronology of events, books, and artworks depicting landscape as a medium since 1800 BCE.)

Philips Koninck, An Extensive Wooded Landscape, 1670s, oil on canvas / image: The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Nineteenth-Century & Earlier Paintings and Drawings

17th century Dutch painters

Jacob van Ruisdael, Landscape with a Village in the Distance, 1646, oil on wood / image: The Metropolitan Museum of Art

18th and 19th century depictions of the Bernese Oberland

Albert Bierstadt

Birger Sandzén

Wang Hui and assistants, The Kangxi Emperor’s Southern Inspection Tour, Scroll Three: Ji’nan to Mount Tai, 1698, ink and color on silk / image: The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Chinese landscape paintings

Edge of a Forest with a Grainfield, Jacob van Ruisdael

François Boucher, Imaginary Landscape with the Palatine Hill from Campo Vaccino, 1734, oil on canvas / image: The Metropolitan Museum of Art

François Boucher

Gustav Klimt’s landscapes

Hudson River School artists: Thomas Cole, Frederic Edwin Church, Thomas Moran

Ike Taiga, Orchid Pavilion Gathering; Autumn Landscape, ca. 1763, ink and color on paper / image: The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Japanese landscape paintings in the Zen Style

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot

Jean Honoré Fragonard, View of a Park, ca. 1757–59, black chalk, gray wash, touches of black and brown wash, framing lines in pen and black ink / image: The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Jean-Honoré Fragonard

J. M. W. Turner

Joseph Mallord William Turner, Solitude, or The Reading Magdalen (Liber Studiorum, part XI, plate 53), 1814, etching and mezzotint / image: The Metropolitan Museum of Art

John Singer Sargent’s watercolors

La Grande Jatte, Georges Seurat

Paul Gauguin

Pierre Bonnard’s paintings through windows in the south of France

Winslow Homer

John Singer Sargent, Terrace, Vizcaya, 1917, watercolor and graphite on white wove paper / image: The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Twentieth-Century & Contemporary Paintings

“Kazuo Oga’s paintings of landscapes (more known for doing background paintings for Studio Ghibli anime films)”

Edward Hopper

Georgia O’Keefe

Mark Rothko’s abstract expressions of landscape

Maxfield Parrish

P.A. Nisbet

Paul Klee, Garden in St. Germain, The European Quarter Near Tunis, 1914, watercolor on paper mounted on cardboard / image: The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Paul Klee’s views of Tunisia

Salvador Dali’s Catalan landscapes

“The paintings of Davis Perkins of California capture the essence and beauty of landscapes.”

Thin Ice, Andrew Wyeth

Windy Day in Auxerre, Chaim Soutine

Chaim Soutine, View of Cagnes, ca. 1924–25, oil on canvas / image: The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Posters, Prints, & Photography

AE Bye’s photography

Alex MacLean’s photography

Ansel Adams’ photography

Audubon Society prints

David Hockney’s Pearlblossom Hwy.

Leonardo da Vinci’s drawings

Lake and mountains, “McDonald Lake, Glacier National Park,” Montana, from the series: Ansel Adams Photographs of National Parks and Monuments, compiled 1941-1942, documenting the period ca. 1933-1942 / image: The U.S. National Archives via Flickr

At the start of 2015, a questionnaire was sent out to members of ASLA’s Professional Practice Networks (PPNs). The theme: creativity and inspired design. As you can imagine, responses were varied, and included many insightful comments and suggestions. Synopses of the survey results were originally shared in LAND over the course of 2015, and we are now re-posting this information here on The Field. For the latest updates on the results of the annual PPN Survey, see LAND’s PPN News section.

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