Still Life And Landscape Art

By Coleen Torres


In the hierarchy of genres set up by the Academy, the most important genres are history painting, portraiture and genre painting. Still life and landscape art were considered less important, and still life is on the fifth, while landscape is on the fourth place. Even so, some of the most beautiful paintings ever painted emerged here, for example, Van Gogh's Sunflowers or his extraordinary landscapes made in different techniques.

Still life painting became popular in sixteenth century. Artists paint inanimate objects, natural or manufactured, anything that doesn't move or is dead, as it is explained in Tate museum Glossary. Natural objects usually include food, drinks, flowers and similar things. Manufactured objects painted on these pictures are often bottles, vases and books.

Early works often involved symbolism, especially when it comes to flowers. Lilies were often featured, as a symbol of purity. Later on, some other artists enjoyed painting something simply because these objects were interesting for their shape or their color, or maybe texture. Cezanne was one of them, and he made some really lovely pieces.

Caravaggio's basket of fruits is considered to be the first Western art major work presenting still life, at least the first recognized one. In the 1600s, some authors in Netherlands became more interested in this genre. Floral motif is quite common at the time, symbolic or not. Amazed by the beauty of flowers, numerous painters decided to immortalize this beauty.

Other popular motifs were breakfast and banquet pictures, game pictures and vanities. Paintings usually have neutral background, with cool gray and warm tan colors, combined with silver and gold details. Bright colors of a main theme are in the front plan, emphasized by this neutral background. Different reminders of death are often present, for example skulls or watches.

Landscape art depict physical world. This includes mountains, water, sky and vegetation. This type of art can be really detailed and realistic, but also idealized, romantic or impressionistic. Oil is the most dominant technique here, but many artists preferred acrylic, gauche or pastels. Mixed techniques are also quite common.

Landscape officially became an independent genre in the 1600s. In this early period only a few authors were interested in painting landscapes. The situation will soon be changed, and this genre is popular today as well. Modern landscapes feature industrial buildings, roads and similar things.

In Chinese art, this lovely motif was highly appreciated, but in Western art it was included in paintings only as a setting for different human activities, purely as a background. With the rise of the Dutch and Flemish schools in the seventeenth century, some prominent artists such as Vermeer made the difference, and this type of art became more respected and popular.

Nineteenth century gave birth to some of the most beautiful examples of landscape art. Mostly made in England and France, by artists such as Constable, Turner, Camille Pissarro and Renoir, these pictures can really take your breath away. Human figures can be presented in the background, but if they have no importance at all, the picture is still considered as landscape.




About the Author:



No comments:

Post a Comment