landscape painting

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Representation of inland scenery, such as a countryside view or city skyline; also a format of painting that is wider than its height. Landscape paintings were produced in China in the early centuries AD, but are not thought to have appeared in Western art until the Middle Ages, when they were incorporated as background elements in illuminated manuscripts and paintings. The Italian painter Ambrogio Lorenzetti is credited with making the first painting devoted to landscape in around 1335. However, commissioned works continued to focus on portraiture, and religious and mythological scenes, until the 17th century when ‘classical landscape’ developed, and the works of Rubens and the Dutch School promoted the genre. The depiction of landscape as a display of property is exemplified by Gainsborough's Mr and Mrs Andrews (c. 1748), a portrait set against a wide landscape of their land. Impressionism was the last great phase of landscape objectively treated, though it was not the end of its development. Cézanne made landscape into a study of essential structure underlying all natural forms; Vincent van Gogh made it a vehicle for expressing personal emotion. Other significant landscape artists include J M W Turner, whose shimmering works anticipated Impressionism; and Thomas Cole, founder of the Hudson River School, the first American school of landscape painting.

Early representations of landscape
Landscape commissions were initially less popular because they were seen to serve no particular purpose for the person paying. Paintings were considered a luxury and only commissioned for events such as the commemoration of an important person; or to decorate churches and cathedrals, both as an act of worship and to instruct those of the faith who could not read; or later to display personal wealth and status.

However, natural scenery has been employed as a backdrop since Roman times, and Lorenzetti may have been inspired by an earlier Roman landscape fresco (wall painting) that no longer survives. His Landscape (c. 1335) and great frescoes depicting The Effects of Good and Bad Government on Town and Countryside (1337–39; Town Hall, Siena) are considered the earliest examples of Western landscape. The Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry (early 15th century) is notable for its pictorial calendar representing the changes of the seasons and features people at work and play in a landscape backdrop. In the 15th century landscape was used both as detail, as in the work of Jan van Eyck, and often as a dramatic accessory. The Flemish painter Joachim Patenier (c. 1485–1524) made landscape the dominant feature in his religious paintings. Hieronymous Bosch created fantastic landscapes, as in his triptych The Garden of Earthly Delights (about 1505–10; Prado, Madrid); and in the 16th century Pieter Brueghel the Elder, uses a snow-covered landscape to great effect in his Census of Bethlehem (Brussels).

Development of landscape painting
Landscape painting developed with the interest in their new surroundings of artists travelling to Italy. Dürer, for example, left a notable record of his journey in watercolour.

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