Landscape messages

Arts & Activities, April, 2004 by Guy Hubbard

Most artists paint landscapes because the beauty they see in front of them ignites their imagination and they want to share it with others. Other artists find religious meanings in views of Nature and try to communicate these meanings through their pictures. In other words, artists try to communicate messages to their viewers through their paintings.

While some artists try to paint outdoor scenes with perfect realism, so much detail exists outdoors that it is really impossible to do. So in a way, all landscape paintings are very personal in both the messages the artist tries to communicate and the style of painting the artist uses, with realism being an impossible dream even when it may seem to be the actual goal.

From the very beginning, then, landscape paintings have been products of artists' imaginations. Some are serious attempts to show objects and places the artist saw, while others may be total inventions. Most fall somewhere in between. Some invented landscapes may be painted quite realistically (and only the artist may know that), while others may be painted very abstractly (which may be more obvious to viewers).

Every bit as important as the uses of abstraction and realism, artists try to communicate meaning to viewers about what they think and feel about a particular scene. They use their painting styles to insert their artistic goals into their pictures. The American artist, Charles Burchfield, breathes a riot of life into his plants and trees, as though they have an unstoppable energy in them that only the artist can see.

The French artist, Albert Gleizes, expresses quite a different point of view. He thoughtfully analyzes the country scene that lies in front of him through Cubist eyes and converts it into geometric shapes and forms. Instead of portraying luxurious natural growth, he reveals a frozen world of carefully constructed geometrical shapes and forms. Two more contrasting landscape messages are difficult to imagine--one American, one French.

The differences between the paintings of Joachim Patenier and Caspar David Friedrich are equally extreme, due partly to the changes that have occurred during the 300 years that separate them. Both include rugged rocky landscapes seen from above, but Patenier's are highly imaginative whereas those by Friedrich have been assembled from places he knew. The messages in the Patenier painting combine a Biblical story as well as a landscape fantasy, while Friedrich's message is more unified, where the rocky landscape is seen as a way of explaining life and death under the overall power of God.

Only four landscape messages can be included in this article although hundreds--if not thousands--could be added to create a school art collection, and all could be very different from one another. Leadership for such a collection is mainly a task for an art teacher, although it would be best realized with willing help from students. Sources for pictures could be books, photocopies and computer printouts so that students could view numbers of images at one time rather than having to study them in serial order as in a book or slide show.

The four images shown here span 500 years, from the Patenier picture painted in Flanders at the time when serious landscape painting began in Europe. Soon afterwards, it was followed by the great age of Dutch landscape painting that carried different kinds of artistic messages. English landscape painting from the 18th century is a source of different artistic messages and ideas that may interest students, leading to the masterpieces by John Constable and J.M.W. Turner.

The opening up of North America during the 19th century offers many different types of landscape messages derived from the dramatic American geography that was then being discovered. This is best seen through the works of such artists as Albeit Bierstadt and Thomas Moran. In Europe, landscape messages were opened up through paintings by (Romantic) artists such as the German artist, Caspar David Friedrich, while in America through groups such as the Hudson River School of artists. Later, the well-known work of the French Impressionists eclipsed most others, down to the present day.

Not least, simply collecting and looking at examples of artworks is usually insufficient for effective learning to occur, even if a message is very powerful. Students are more likely to learn from practical experience than just looking. For this reason, they should be encouraged to copy parts or all of the images that appeal to them and keep their successful efforts for future use. They might either help with further understanding about an artist and what he or she has to say and also what the students might include in their own creative work. These studies should be thought of as pictorial notes, not unlike notes taken for other school subjects. Pencil, crayon, pen and ink, and paint may be used for these studies and they should be preserved in folders.

ONE OF THE DELIGHTS OF CHILDHOOD on a summer afternoon is lying on the ground in the warm sunshine and telling stories about the surrounding flowers and trees. Because they are so close, small plants can look large and mysterious while larger more distant objects such as buildings and clouds are hardly visible. It is this kind of view of the world that Charles Burchfield painted in this picture. It is of a magical experience he shares with viewers.