Like a disaster movie, Turner’s painting transforms a natural catastrophe — with death a near-certainty — into entertainment.
A-level: Nature—Landscape or Seascape 2D works
In the distance, lightning strikes. What does it mean? Poetic and evocative, this painting invites interpretation.
Giorgione, The Tempest
A princess falls under a spell and sleeps for a hundred years — but Burne-Jones never shows us the kiss that awakens her.
Sleeping Beauty — but without the Kiss: ...
Landscape painting was considered lowly subject, but Constable gives them the six-foot treatment.
John Constable, The Hay Wain
The Colombian Chorographic Commission mapped the country while also documenting the landscape and its people.
Carmelo Fernández, The Strait of Furatena in ...
From mountain-shaped incense burners to paradisiacal Buddhist paintings, landscapes are central to Chinese art.
Chinese landscape painting
The subject is conventional, but Liang Kai’s airy composition makes this painting unusual. What’s behind the mist?
Liang Kai, Poet Strolling by a Marshy ...
The artist eliminated a key element of this innovative painting five years after he finished it.
Winslow Homer, Northeaster
Combining metallic curls with mottled color, Kôrin’s screens capture the pulsing vitality of early spring.
Ogata Kōrin, Red and White Plum Blossoms
Beautifully rendered details of the Dieppe harbor are second only to Turner’s true love—the sublime sun.
J. M. W. Turner, The Harbor of ...
Refusing to idealize, Constable fills his landscapes with the specificity of a fleeting summer day.
John Constable, View on the Stour near ...
A beautiful sunset, but look closer. One of humanity’s most hideous acts—seen in the waves of the indifferent sea.
J. M. W. Turner, Slave Ship
Dalí wages war on the rational in this naturalistic landscape populated by strange objects.
Salvador Dalí, The Persistence of Memory
Time collapses in this ambitious painting. As the Greeks battle the Persians, the West fends off the Ottoman East.
Albrecht Altdorfer, The Battle of Issus
Poussin’s ideal landscapes inspired generations of followers. Here, our eye finds a place to rest amidst the ruins.
Nicolas Poussin, Landscape with Saint John on ...
“Luminism” sounds like a subject at Hogwarts, but it actually describes landscape paintings like this one.
Fitz Henry Lane, Owl’s Head, Penobscot Bay, Maine
Monet’s painting technique is perfectly suited for depicting this windy seaside day on the English Channel.
Claude Monet, Cliff Walk at Pourville
Adam and Eve have just been evicted from Paradise, and the grass was definitely greener on the other side.
Thomas Cole, Expulsion from the Garden of Eden
Cezanne gets freaky with the conventions of landscape painting in this fuzzy image of a hot day.
Paul Cézanne, The Red Rock
An ancient, gnarled tree, not the shepherd at its base, is the protagonist of Friedrich’s landscape.
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