Alice Elizabeth Chase in Looking at Art opens up chapter 3 of her book to dive into landscape technique. Over the course of the text, she talks about the many nations and provinces over the course of history who have adopted individualized styles of drawing. She also makes the case that each artistic technique has a foundation in one root culture. Furthermore, she describes what is the spectator’s role in analyzing or simply viewing a painter’s perspective.
In Chapter 3 of the book, Chase establishes some basic rules of aesthetics; objects nearby are clear and bright while far objects blur together in the distance and often appear small; artists must also be able to excise much of the landscapes they see so that they do not become distracted by the more minor details. She provides some historical examples of various cultures’ landscape painting habits. She cites Ancient Egypt as having focused on the shapes and species of animals within the art instead of giving a realistic portrayal of what truly existed. She insinuates that the Greeks used landscapes merely for settings, while claiming the Romans used them to distinguish heroic triumphs; this gave Roman art a sense of optimism.
Chase then goes into a lengthy description of Chinese artistry, providing supplementary info on the subject as well. Chinese landscapes have a distinctive style because they are reflective of the “moods of man and the infinity of God” (21). Additionally, poems accompanied the pictures as well. The art itself however remained plain in color. The only variation lied in the blackness of the ink. The lack of ink usually indicated the clouds, the sky, or mist. This was often done to leave a feeling of revery within the spectator.
Contrastingly, early Western art, i.e. the early medieval period, gold backgrounds were dropped behind saints. This was, however, quickly revamped, and the backgrounds were brimming with scenic landscapes: mountains, fields, and blue skies. Most importantly, this beauty was supposed to be reflective of God’s world, so God was to be seen in every backdrop of these works of art.
Much later on, bright and “wet” colors had a profound effect on 18th century American art. These colors were expressed the wilderness and unexplored depictions of the West, which at the time was the pivotal focus of American patriotism. Moving out west to explore the new lands was the most American thing you could do.
A bit after that, Chase returns to the new ways in which art could be rendered. In the middle of the 19th century, artist realized they could use their work as a medium of personal expression. Paul Cezanne, for instance, painted a mountainous landscape to demonstrate its domination over tiny figures such as ourselves.
For much of the fourth chapter, Chase distances herself from the techniques of individual countries and begins to discuss the introduction and effects of light, shade, and vanishing points. She introduces these concepts to help explain artistic perspective from both a historical perspective and an artistic one in a confluent fashion. Essentially, she states that all these accurately show what the eye sees, but she does not order this at the top of a technical hierarchy; she invites other systems of artistic display to show things that one method alone cannot achieve.
