Landscape's throughout art and time by

Bamboo in the Four Seasons, Late 15th - Early 16th Century (Muromachi Period)

maddiejwallace — 2025-04-20 20:05:15 UTC

Bamboo in the Four Seasons was made in the Muromachi period and is a pair of 6 panel screens using ink, color, and gold leaf on paper to create the image shown. Created by Tosa Mitsunobu (attribution) this piece stands at size of 170 x 360 cm each. Originally from Japan this piece now resides in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Moving from right to left, you can see the progression of the changing seasons starting with spring and ending in winter. The painting is unified across by the tallest bamboo branches extending beyond the paper panels and the young small branches bending as if caught blowing in the wind. This is a beautiful and unique portrayal of a landscape; it has a lot more simplistic qualities than most but in a way that adds more to the painting instead of taking away. The way the bamboo trees just slightly change moving from right to left gives them their very own personalization’s that create the landscape to be viewed as a whole. I think this is a unique representation as well because hypothetically the screen panels could either be viewed together as one piece or the seasons could be viewed individually. This would give a completely new feeling and interpretation to the paintings.

View from Mount Holyoke, Northampton, Massachusetts, after a thunderstorm - The Oxbow, 1836

maddiejwallace — 2025-04-20 20:07:14 UTC

View from Mount Holyoke, Northampton, Massachusetts, after a thunderstorm – The Oxbow is long known as “The Oxbow”. This is an oil on canvas landscape painting created by Thomas Cole in 1836. Everything about this piece is American, with the where, and style, but Thomas Cole himself was not originally from America. He was born and raised in Bolton-le-Moor in Lancashire (England), more widely, Great Britian for 17 years before him and his family moved to the United States in 1818. This painting now resides in The Metropolitan Museum of Art and is 130.8 x 193 cm large. The view of this landscape painting is a beautiful illustration of the Connecticut River, diving deeper into it and the time period you can infer the topic of westward expansion being presented. Looking at the painting the initial reaction is to view from bottom right to top left. As You travel up wards you can see that the piece is cut diagonally in half with unequal parts. On the left side you can see that is a smaller cut of the painting, untouched by man, it is full of grassy foliage, a broken tree, and storm clouds. This could represent or perceive feelings and sadness or fear. On the right more open side you can see sunshine, open/pasteurized fields, homes, boats in the water and much more. This is a side that has been touched by human kind and is growing and evolving.

From The White Place, 1940

maddiejwallace — 2025-05-14 01:29:54 UTC

From the White Place is an oil on canvas, landscape, painting created in 1940, during the 20^th century by Georgia O’Keeffe. This piece is 30 x 24 inches in size and currently resides in The Phillips Collection in Washington D.C, which was acquired in 1941. Georgia O’Keeffe was a very big American Modernism style of painter. She was very skilled at use essential elements of creating art including line, color, and composition. I also believe that she was very skilled at creating space in her pieces of art and how when viewed your eye is drawn to move around the whole piece. O’Keeffe based this painting off of the mountains and landscape around her home in Mexico. She uses a more neutral and earthy pallet, creating this sense of softness that is almost soothing to the eye. The contrast between the white and grey mountains with the green foliage and shadows is very pleasing to the eye. There is also a strong presence of verticality being shown in the piece with the mountains which brings a huge sturdiness to the piece that is unforgettable. To me this painting is very calming, the muted colors with elongated view of looking up towards the top of the mountain is really relaxing to me. It feels as though I am meant to just being looking up and taking in the beautiful view surrounding me.

View of Delft, 1660-61

maddiejwallace — 2025-05-14 04:40:04 UTC

View of Delft is an oil on canvas, landscape, painting created in 1660-61 during the Baroque time period by Johannes Vermeer. This painting sits at 96.5 x 117.5 cm in size, and it located in Mauritshuis. Vermeer was one of the greatest Dutch painters of the golden age and well known for his luminous paintings as he loved playing with the way light affected different things including cityscapes, daily life, and interior scenes of middle-class life. Johannes painted this View of Delft from the South and uses a different play with light/shadows coming from the clouds and washing over the entire painting. It feels as though he split his painting into three horizontal sections, water, city, sky. I think the way that he broke these up was smart as they are all still connected through the way light reflects across the piece. I found it interesting that he also chooses to paint the buildings a bit neater than they were in real life. I really enjoy the colors that Vermeer used in creating this painting. The colors are bright but slightly muted at the same time and it gives off this vibrant feeling. It makes me feel as though the town is up and happening.