To the naked eye, a view from a great height creates an enormous landscape whose bright colors and varying textures mesmerize the viewer. An average individual can appreciate the view and perhaps take represent the view with a photograph. An artist, on the other hand, must find a way to capture the true immensity of the view and limit the space in order to truly show his feelings on the landscape. Because of this challenge, landscapes have had various meanings and levels of importance across many cultures and artistic spheres.

Egyptians painted their landscapes as “maps”, carefully documenting exa1ctly what th eye could see.

While the Ancient Greeks utilized landscapes as mere backdrops for human figures, the Romans paintings of wooded forests and flowing meadows in order to transport the viewer into another space. Although such landscapes were hardly accurate, they served as a city-dweller’s idealized view of nature: turmoil free and peaceful.

The Chinese, unlike both the Greeks and Romans, believed a landscape ot be the most vital component of a painting. Often times accompanied with a poem, such Chinese landscapes used varying shades of black to capture the hidden beauty pf otherwise mundane landscapes. Varying brush strokes and carefully inserted blank areas all served as tools to express the mountains, trees and rivers commonly found in Chinese paintings.

By the 16^th century, many painters had adopted the notion that man was no more than a figure living in the unpredictable world dictated by nature. In order to demonstrated such a point,  Pieter Bruegel painted “Death of Saul”, in which a horrific battle is belittled and lost among a beautiful winding landscape.

As landscapes slowly gained popularity, many artists created a “formula” with which to quickly create landscapes without actually having to depict the light and air. Artists would place a large tree and cottage painted dark green/brown in the foreground of the painting, followed by a light area. The light area would be followed by another dark area, and the process would be repeated until a successful landscape was created.

At the start of the 19^th century, it became fashionable for English aristocrats to commission artists to create paintings of their lofty properties. Such specific landscapes allowed artists such as John Constable to experiment with various shades of colors that had not been used to depict landscapes before.

This style of painting was particularly popular in the newly fledging United States of America as a method for patriotic settlers to depict the beauty and wonder of the American countryside. Artists painted the Rocky Mountains, Connecticut River Valley, Adirondacks and other iconic American landscapes, all for the patriotic spirit

As the middle of the 19^th century approached, artists began to lean away from grandiose landscapes and instead focus on the modest depictions. Many artists abandoned the immense mountains and never-ending valleys for gardens and streams.  Artists took their drawing supplies outdoors and attempted to draw exactly what they saw, down to the light and the dust in the air. However, they quickly began to realize that a landscape was not simply a depiction of what saw, but a way to convey one’s own feelings. As a result, artists began to manipulate what they saw in front of them in order to present an idea to the viewer. Perhaps, the most famous example of such a technique is Vincent Van Gogh’s “Starry Night”.

Landscapes have always been undeniably important in the history of modern art. Such paintings introduce individuals to new ways of “seeing” the world around them, as well as sharpening one’s perception and emphasizing the importance of the relationship between man and nature.

 

Another challenge encountered by artists is how to best represent people in motion. In real life people block one another, cover details and cast shadows that can make painting almost impossible. Even if oen attempts to stage “movement” the results can appear to be staged and unrealistic. Such problems date back to the earliest instances of art.

Both Mesopotamian and Egyptian artists depicted moving figures in profile to capture the total image. Such paintings often depicted workers in their daily life as they harvested grain, fed livestock or participated in wrestling competitions. Early Greek paintings also utilized this simple profile style. However, by the fifth century BC Greek artists began depicting bodies in motion through the 3^rd dimension. Italian artists began to experiment with light and shadow in order to depict depth in their mosaics.

However, when artists attempt to portray scenes they often have problems with accurately depicting “perspective”. Objects in the distance appear smaller than those in the foreground as the entire view is distorted by perspective. Consequently, while Greek and Roman artists attempted to stay true to how the world “looked”, they did not how to accurately depict the vanishing point perspective.

By the 15^th century, artists had begun to study perspective scientifically in attempt to discover the laws that relate the notions of size and space. The discovery of such laws challenged the previously held notions of Italian painters, such as the heralded Da Vinci. Building of these discoveries, German painter Albrecht Durer painted diagrams in order to show how scientific accuracy could be attained. His method worked well for small objects at a specific distance, however, when an object was incredibly close or on a side view, his method was faulty.

As artists experimented with various views between spectators and viewers, they were able to master the use of perspective. By the 17^th century, the perfection of perspective allowed artists to paint from all sorts of angles and perspectives while maintaining scientific validity.

Japanese and Chinese painters utilized “isometric perspective” in which parallel lines continue infinitely and od not come together at a classical vanishing point. Such a style gave Eastern Asian paintings a recognizable and distinct perspective.

Consequently, there are an infinite number of ways for an artist to manipulate the perspective of a painting, each with its own unique qualities and advantages.