The Secret to Painting Realistic Landscapes

 

Painting landscapes is the pictorial-artistic representation of the landscape. It traditionally encompasses scenarios of nature, whether it includes vegetation, mountains, lakes, seas, or rivers, among other things. It can also include cities and towns, or elements thereof. It can even be completely in the center of a town. The very act of landscape painting is an intellectually complex activity. Painting a very good landscape requires a deep analysis of the optical aspect of what it means to see a landscape. It is necessary to reflect on how light acts physically on it and to think about how to use painting materials to represent it. Bellow, Brooklyn-based landscape artist Albert Serino shares some of his tips on how to paint realistic landscapes.

Al Serino: Landscape Painting

Landscape painting, also known as landscape art, is the representation in the art of landscapes - natural landscapes such as mountains, valleys, trees, rivers and forests, especially where the main subject is a broad vision - with its elements arranged in a consistent composition.

Plein-Air painting: History

In plein air or outdoor landscape painting began with the Romantics (fl.1789-1830) whose search for authenticity gave a particular value to the spontaneous drawing of nature. Al Serino (Albert Serino), a Brooklyn-based landscape painter shares that, among the first pioneers of plein-air landscapes were Meindert Hobbema (1638- 1709), John Constable (1776-1837) and Richard Parkes Bonington (1802-28), who with JWM Turner (1775-1851) exemplified 19th-century English landscape painting. Although most of Constable's outdoor work was limited to drawings, in pencil and oil, which were later worked on in his studio, at least one of his works, his masterpiece, Boatbuilding Near Flatford Mill (1815), was painted completely outdoors. Serino points out that famous outdoor painting schools include: Barbizon School (1830-75); French Impressionism (1873-85); the Heidelberg school of Australian Impressionism (1886-1900); and the Russian Wanderers (itinerants) (c.1865-1900). For an explanation of the work of the members of these schools, see: Analysis of modern paintings (1800-2000).

History of Landscape Painting

One of the principal types or genres of subject in Western art is landscape

It has been relatively recently that nature started being appreciated for its own sake and became a specific subject of art.

Here, landscape painter Albert Serino shares some facts about landscape painting across the centuries.

Landscape was used only as a background of portraits or paintings, generally of religious, mythological or historical subjects, until the seventeenth century.

Nowadays, landscape continues to be a major theme in art. In order to explore the ways people relate to the places they live in, and to record the impact they have on the land and the environment, many artists, including Al Serino, are using documentary techniques such as video, photography and classification processes.