Mountain Landscape exemplifies the revered style of landscape brush painting that was first developed and perfected during the Northern Song dynasty (960-1127). It was painted around 1663 during the Qing dynasty (1644-1911) by a well-known Chinese artist named Kuncan (c.1612-1675). Kuncan, also known as Shiqi, was a Chan (Zen) Buddhist monk painter who used both religion and nature as inspirational models throughout his paintings. Mountain Landscape, a 41 5/8 x 11 1/8 inch hanging scroll, is painted on paper using ink and light color. The painting is located in Gallery 113 of the Dayton Art Institute and its acquisition number is 1976.277.
The viewer begins his/her journey at the bottom of Mountain Landscape, passing over rocks and shrubs while contemplating the quiet repose of nature. The viewer’s eye then meanders through the trees to a small figure that has assumed a sitting or kneeling position. The figure appears to be in a meditative state, drawing inspiration and peace from its natural surroundings. An enclosed hut lies a short distance from the figure, a mere speck in the vast wilderness. To the left of the hut, a group of trees remain shrouded in mist, adding a mysterious, ethereal quality to the painting. A towering mountain looms in the background, engulfing the tranquil scene below. Streams of languid waterfalls cascade from the mountain’s crevices, providing a sharp contrast to the mountain’s severe overhanging rock. A small village lies nestled on the side of the mountain, partially concealed by a mixture of firs and jagged leafless trees. The viewer’s journey of the painting ends with an expansive range of jutting mountains, which seemingly fade into the distant heavens. The upper right corner of the painting p...
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...on to China’s tumultuous history. The Qing Dynasty began when the Manchurians, foreigners from the north, overthrew the weakened Ming dynastic rulers in 1644. Kancun, a young man during the fall of the Ming Dynasty, was deeply troubled by the Manchurians’ political and economic takeover. This resentment was shared by other literati painters and led to the forming of a group of artists known as the Individualists. In the book Art Beyond the West, the Individualists are described as “Ming loyalists who resented the hegemony of the new, foreign dynasty” (M. Kampen-O’Riley 141). As a result, they sought to distance themselves from its corrupt influence by escaping to mountain sanctuaries. Mountain Landscape personifies Kuncan’s disappointment in modern civilization while also depicting his revered love for nature and the strength he received from life’s natural forces.
Claude-Joseph Vernet’s oil on canvas painting titled Mountain Landscape with an Approaching Storm was created in 1775, and it is currently located in the European Art Galleries (18th- 19th Century North) 2nd Floor at the Dallas Museum of Art. It is a large-scale painting with overall dimensions of 64 1/2 x 103 1/4 in. (1 m 63.83 cm x 2 m 62.26 cm) and frame dimensions of 76 1/8 x 115 1/4 x 4 3/4 in. (1 m 93.36 cm x 2 m 92.74 cm x 12.07 cm). Vernet creates this piece by painting elements from nature and using organic shapes in order to create atmospheric effects, weather and different moods. This piece primarily depicts a landscape with a rocky mountainous terrain and villagers scrambling to an upcoming storm.
At the left-bottom corner of the painting, the viewer is presented with a rugged-orangish cliff and on top of it, two parallel dark green trees extending towards the sky. This section of the painting is mostly shadowed in darkness since the cliff is high, and the light is emanating from the background. A waterfall, seen originating from the far distant mountains, makes its way down into a patch of lime-green pasture, then fuses into a white lake, and finally becomes anew, a chaotic waterfall(rocks interfere its smooth passage), separating the latter cliff with a more distant cliff in the center. At the immediate bottom-center of the foreground appears a flat land which runs from the center and slowly ascends into a cliff as it travels to the right. Green bushes, rough orange rocks, and pine trees are scattered throughout this piece of land. Since this section of the painting is at a lower level as opposed to the left cliff, the light is more evidently being exposed around the edges of the land, rocks, and trees. Although the atmosphere of the landscape is a chilly one, highlights of a warm light make this scene seem to take place around the time of spring.
To inspire the visualization of the idyllic Florida’s fields, this canvas is sized to produce that impression of your presence in the coast. With a sense of solitude that is accompany by the magic of the discovery of a beautiful romantic peace, this canvas transmits you the desire to be there. The scene makes you feel that you have found that special site where you want to be for the rest of your life in concordance with nature. It is easy to spot in this paint how diverse and unreceptive subtropical locality in early Florida define the subjective state of being. In this art he totally complies with one of the most delightful characterizations of Romanticism, he puts together the heart and the mind to idealize the authenticity of the wilderness in the scene according to what the artist considered relevant to present.
The painting is an epic to the daily life of a church at the start of the Renaissance. The painting is done for a little girl who is in the foreground. The sole purpose of the painting is the eagerness and excitement of the future. The people are active in bright clothes. The colors used are bright showing hope for the future. The people in the painting add to the delightful optimism. The forms are delineated like the columns. Apparent details above the columns, retreating into the background. The masses have space and mass. Every stone is perfectly in place. There is a peculiar darkness across the painting that
... study for the overall concept they appear rather as abstract patterns. The shadows of the figures were very carefully modeled. The light- dark contrasts of the shadows make them seem actually real. The spatial quality is only established through the relations between the sizes of the objects. The painting is not based on a geometrical, box like space. The perspective centre is on the right, despite the fact that the composition is laid in rows parallel to the picture frame. At the same time a paradoxical foreshortening from right to left is evident. The girl fishing with the orange dress and her mother are on the same level, that is, actually at equal distance. In its spatial contruction, the painting is also a successful construction, the groups of people sitting in the shade, and who should really be seen from above, are all shown directly from the side. The ideal eye level would actually be on different horizontal lines; first at head height of the standing figures, then of those seated. Seurats methods of combing observations which he collected over two years, corresponds, in its self invented techniques, to a modern lifelike painting rather than an academic history painting.
Dani and I stand in the sun waiting for the “men” to catch up. The view was worth Quill’s whining and navigating through the snow. The breeze catches in the bright green and gold of new Aspen leaves whispering around the lake. The Pine trees scent the air and bask in the sun to steal its warmth from the forest below. The trees are a dark canopy along our path permitting only a few patches of the raised finely mulched trail to a beam or two of sun. Framed like a photo three pencil lead gray peaks rise above a lower sweeping curve of pines. They look close enough to walk over the ridge and touch them. Boulders precariously cling to the side of the mountains. The perfect deep blue early summer sky is the perfect backdrop.
This places the reader in recognisable landscape which is brought to life and to some extent made clearer to us by the use of powerful, though by no means overly literary adjectives. Machado is concerned with presenting a picture of the Spanish landscape which is both recognisable and powerful in evoking the simple joys which it represents. Furthermore, Machado relies on what Arthur Terry describes as an `interplay between reality and meditation' in his description of landscape. The existence of reality in the text is created by the use of geographical terms and the use of real names and places such as SOrai and the Duero, while the meditation is found in...
Thomas Moran’s painting captures the essence of the true spirit of the Yellowstone Canyon and overwhelms any viewers who go up to it. With a size of 7’ by 12’ and a mastery display of vivid colors with hues of orange and yellow contrasted with the dark cold colors of the shadows, anyone would be overwhelmed. Under the cool shade, the path extending in front invites the viewer to join the tiny figures in the distance who seem to overlook the grand valley of the canyon below. The view from where those people are in the distance could be quite breathtaking, and this adds to the painting’s value. Moran captured the public and the government’s fascinations with the beauties of America’s Wild West. Moran’s mastery of composition within landscape
... into deeper indigos and grays. The dramatic contrasts in light and tone aid in the formation of space without causing too much motion in the scene. The strong lines throughout give the images more conceptual meaning. The mountains are tangible and solid, clearly separated from both the ground and the deep blue sky. The light dramatizes both the depth and clarity in the painting.
From the piece of artwork “Rain at the Auvers”. I can see roofs of houses that are tucked into a valley, trees hiding the town, black birds, clouds upon the horizon, hills, vegetation, a dark stormy sky and rain.
It appears to me that pictures have been over-valued; held up by a blind admiration as ideal things, and almost as standards by which nature is to be judged rather than the reverse; and this false estimate has been sanctioned by the extravagant epithets that have been applied to painters, and "the divine," "the inspired," and so forth. Yet in reality, what are the most sublime productions of the pencil but selections of some of the forms of nature, and copies of a few of her evanescent effects, and this is the result, not of inspiration, but of long and patient study, under the instruction of much good sense…
There is a lot of repetition of the vertical lines of the forest in the background of the painting, these vertical lines draw the eye up into the clouds and the sky. These repeated vertical lines contrast harshly with a horizontal line that divides the canvas almost exactly in half. The background, upper portion of the canvas, is quite static and flat, whereas the foreground and middle ground of the painting have quite a lot of depth. This static effect is made up for in the immaculate amount of d...
In fact, some of the works presented depict mythological paintings that resemble the transcending Metaphysical matter of nature. Take for instance, the general aspect of the artworks presented in this chapter. They depict different social levels through the use of objects, emotions and various conditions. The lower status contradicts, the slaves to the wealthy and royalty, all delineate the role of the people present in the society and their everyday life. In the images, the poor and the slaves depicted with little to no possessions, looking tired and over-worked. Through their everyday labor, they must survive as a less fortunate person. In contrast to the images of the po...
We took off down a path covered softly with moss and tiny pink flowers. Off to the side of the path were endless green trees and pants all nestled together to make one beautiful piece of art. After a while, we reached a sparkling, clear brook. It was about twelve feet deep and nearly three feet deep. The path wound right along side the water. Down the brook a ways, we came to a deep water hole where the fish danced in the swirling current. I noticed the brook was beginning to flow a little faster now, and I could hear the steady, rushing noise of the water falling over the cliffs that lied ahead. We walked to the cliff's edge to look over at the crystal clear lagoon that lay below us. The falls dropped about thirty feet down before it met the pool of water below. To the sides of the waterfall were moss-covered rocks, ferns and other green plants, growing from the crevices of the cliffs.
The implied sunlight is natural that has an illusion of coming through the clouds, the reality of the sunlight seems to dry out the land. Yet, it symbolizes the overcoming of the end of a drought on the rural crop lands. The colors of neutral tones are used predominately throughout the landscape. The brown neutral-toned houses are surrounded by wisps of yellow, overgrown, grass which seem to represent the destruction that mankind has caused, in turn, is suppressing nature and holding back the potential beauty it could unleash. The dull grass and trees lack vivid colors and present a lackluster mood. Yet, the yellow grass draws you to the horizon of the painting. This seems to resemble the hopefulness of a new crop in the dry crop land. The yellow grass shows the harsh results of a drought that has been sprinkled with blue horizontal streaks. The blue horizontal streaks demonstrate puddles of water as if it has recently rained. The blue color emits a feeling of calmness as if the uneasiness of the drought season has been lifted. The colors lack blending and create a blunt contrast appearance. The dark shadow in the bottom right corner mysteriousness and an ominous feeling of an omniscient presence. The form the artist chose to work with demonstrated an organic form with a combination of a geometric form because of the three structures at the focal point of the painting (DeWitte, et al., 2015). The artist made this choice to show the results of a drought caused by the