Landscape(d)

Landscape(d)

 

“Landscape” is a multi-faceted term. As a noun, it refers to a seemingly untouched view of natural scenery, while the verb “to landscape” implies the man-made modification or embellishment of the land.1 What do we mean, then, by “landscape painting”? Bringing together eleven works from Columbia’s Art Properties collection, Landscape(d) highlights the implications of the word’s dual meaning on painted representations of nature. Focusing on European and American nineteenth- and early twentieth-century painting, the exhibition includes works by major landscape artists and lesser-known talents working in traditions such as Dutch Romanticism, the Hudson River School, and American Modernism. Presenting the works thematically, Landscape(d) demonstrates how the act of painting nature is an intrinsically inventive process that combines the subject of the land with the act of landscaping. Through their unique brushwork, artists convert land into landscape by aestheticizing a view.2

Human alteration of the land is most evident in the works that depict man-made infrastructures, from dwelling places to fountains and fences. In German Landscape, Julius Schrag simultaneously centers the red roof of a house and nestles it deeply in lush greenery. Two canvases by Florine Stettheimer, Landscape in an Italian Park (The Poplars) and The Fountain, hang on opposite walls and call attention to differences between public and private landscaped spaces. The labors undertaken to make land habitable are also on display, as evidenced by the well-traveled path in Carl Friedrich Lessing’s Landscape with Figures in a Wagon, and the clear-cut forest in Fletcher Martin’s Tree Workers where nature has been permanently changed for the benefit of humankind. Even the views which appear the most untouched—Frederic Edwin Church’s Cotopaxi or Arthur Wesley Dow’s Gay Head—involved manipulation of natural elements to create more visually enticing pictures. Exploring the foundations of a well-established genre, Landscape(d) reveals how artists of landscape paintings can both represent and reinvent nature.  

All paintings included in Landscape(d) entered the Art Properties collection as gifts, bequests, or purchases. Of the works on view, several presented gaps in ownership history. The MA students who curated this exhibition began the ongoing effort of researching provenance and made significant discoveries; however, more research is still needed in many instances. Please visit the exhibition website for more information.