Landscape Painting

Landscape paintings are famous with artists and appreciators alike. Decorative landscapes used simply to enhance portraits were popular in 15th-century Italian painting and 18th-century English and French figure painting. Landscape painting came into being during the 16th century and evolved into a popular primary theme of the 19th-century Impressionists. Descriptive landscapes, which served as background to a religious or mythological event, were dominant

through the Renaissance. Landscape was used by some painters to create a balanced composition.

A horizon line might accentuate some vertical motion, while other natural forms might be used to create a frame around a subject embodying the mood of the landscape, but not defining that mood. However, it is important to remember that a landscape artist is not a camera that records whatever happens to be in front of the lens. He is not required to paint exactly what he sees. If he feels that there are too many trees on a hill, he can leave some of them out of his picture. If he thinks the trees are in the wrong place, he can move them around. If a riverbank looks too empty, he can add a few rocks that are not really there. A landscape artist also has to decide what she wants us to see. If she is painting a field, she has to decide whether she wants us to see each blade of grass or whether she wants us to see the field as a smear of color. She can paint her landscape so that we see the field from above, as if we were looking down from an airplane, or from the ground, as if we were lying flat on a picnic blanket.