Art has greatly evolved alongside humanity, both in the manner of production and way of thinking. At least, that is what an excerpt from “Looking at Art” by Alice E. Chase tells us. In Chapter 3 of the book, Chase describes the evolution of artistic landscapes throughout history. It has always been understood that from far away, objects appear smaller, fainter, and much more blurred then they actually are up close (much bigger, clearer, and brighter). At first, it had been hard for artists to paint the wide and distant views that are landscapes in painting. The Egyptians didn’t seem to focus on landscape at all, depicting only what is there, not as they actually appear. The same can be said for the Assyrians. Rather than intricately detailing the scales of a fish (as we are used to today), they would just draw a basic fish symbol, to show that there is a fish. Moving on, the Greeks began to implement landscape, adding rocks and trees around people to indicate setting. The Romans began to draw out landscapes for the purpose of enjoyment – showing of the quaint and peaceful countryside for what it really wasn’t (especially for the higher up).
The Chinese were the ones to begin considering the importance of landscape, using it to suggest the moods of man and infinity of the Gods. Most of their brushstroke ink paintings were accompanied by poems, and drawn on scrolls read from top to bottom like literature, acting as a sort of story. Mountains were very characteristic of Chinese art at this point in time. Specific brushstrokes were used to express things such as rocks, trees, and other forms of scenery, while blank space was used to represent the sky, water, and mists surrounding mountains.
Medieval art was filled with flat gold backgrounds to saints and other Christian related themes. The Italians began to use landscape simply as a setting for things like saints, while Northerners found a great deal of importance in the use of landscapes. Flemish paintings following these times were always seen to have some sort of arch or window leading out into a grand landscape – showing off God’s creations. The Dutch in Holland were obsessed with their countryside, and featured broad flat fields and beautifully colored skies in their paintings for their own amusement.
Eventually a sort of formula was developed for painting landscapes without need of looking at one, as a result of increased interest. This followed the format of a large tree with people or even a cottage in the foreground, then a sequence of light, dark, and then light areas to draw attention. This was used, but varied, by a majority of painters in the eighteenth century.
The English began to find that it was fashionable to hang paintings of their country estates, but focusing more on the accuracy of the painting to the actual estate, and having an adequate landscape. Fortunately, more of an interest developed for color and atmosphere in landscapes, and this was brought over to the United States along with other influences. At first, landscapes weren’t really desired by American settlers, for they did not wish to look at the outdoors any longer. But as freedom came to the new country, and cities began to develop, more interest in the countryside ensued, capturing bigness, distance, and fertility in many paintings. This wide landscape interest then turned into intimate views of gardens, fields, and streams (basically things in people’s backyards). More recently, artists began to realize that art is more than just a recording of what is being seen. More expression of thought and feeling was added to paintings, changing and adjusting what was seen to present ideas. They were real views, just augmented based on the artist.
The conclusion of landscape discussion then led to discussion of action and perspective in Chapter 4. Unlike landscape painting, which became easier and perfected over time, the capturing of moving objects in action has always been a difficult one. The Egyptians attempted to solve this dilemma by making a human map, where the face was always profile, shoulders front view, and legs side view. People did overlap, and there was no thickness to subjects. Each individual would be differentiated by alternating light and dark borders. The same can be said (once again) to the Assyrians in Mesopotamia. The Greeks began by detailing profile bodies like the Egyptians on their pottery, but towards the fifth century B.C.E., a “three dimensional” aspect was implemented. It wasn’t until the first or second century B.C.E. that shadows were ever seen in art. The first example of this was in a Nepalese painting modeling light and shade. Because of its history as a Greek colony, it can be said that the Greeks were in fact the ones to start using shadows.
Perspective also came to be a problem when artists desired to show how things actually looked. It is said that ancient peoples probably analyzed the concepts of perspective, but they definitely were not concerned with it at all. The Greeks and Romans, on the other hand, began to take interest in it. They both observed the coming together of parallel lines as they moved into the distance. The artists of the Middle Ages stopped the use of meeting points of lines being on a single horizon. In the fifteenth century, vision was studied scientifically to help answer perspective problems, as people searched for laws governing relations of size and shape in space. The problem with this was that it was difficult to limit vision to any one scientific scheme – there just isn’t one viewpoint.
Renaissance innovators became fascinated with perspective and foreshortening. These artists tried many experiments regarding the relationship between spectator and picture. It wasn’t until the seventeenth century that the art of perspective was mastered. This time allowed for skillful compositions of figures in space.
The Japanese and Chinese used a method known as “isometric perspective,” where lines that are parallel continue parallel, and never come together to a vanishing point. This method was eventually adapted in the West, used to show the structure of buildings much better.
With all of these trials throughout history, it can be agreed that there is no one right way to represent space. Us in the West are used to vanishing point perspective because that is what we have grown up with. But this may leave things out, aspects that are truly shown in other systems.
