Outfitting an interior space with images of the great outdoors can be a gateway into a skillfully crafted combination of home comfort and nature’s expansiveness. Looking to landscape art enlightens with their extended distances and that oft craved sense of perspective— an automatic connection to a clear mind. And as these grounding elements are augmented by a particularly unique expression, a distinctive interior can be achieved with some truly inspired landscapes.
David Hockney’s unparalleled vision again leads us on a classic trip through his world, rich with inventive playfulness and measured cool. A symmetrical forest, seen from down on hiker’s eye-level, is overflowing with organic detail, delightful color choices and a nearly pattern-like arrangement of flora— while yet maintaining the tranquility of the forest and its distance. The Arrival of Spring in Woldgate, East Yorkshire seems simultaneously surreal and within reach.
Jean Baptiste Camille Corot was a painter and printmaker of the old French masters of the 1800s and a pivotal figure in landscape painting whose work is a transition between referencing Neo-Classical tradition while anticipating the plein-air innovations of Impressionism. This workRoman Landscape is a romantic 1960s stone lithograph of an ecstatic black ink drawing, with untold volumes of emotion hiding in the tree, the stone figure and the sunlight in the distance.
Andreas Scholz’s God's Giving offers a blanket of greenery and a meditative scene, blurring the line between daydream and possibility and conjuring a restorative and uplifting atmosphere. And Ori Reisman’sCountry Road bestows similar sensations with its deep warm sun tones and the promise held by an open road into the horizon.
Morning on the Cher by Jim Buckels and Forest Scene with Figurinesfrom Roy Lichtenstein both work with the magic lighting of dusk to enhance their mood, with a profound dexterity such that one can easily imagine themselves in the settings that they describe.
And for tree forms, cloud shapes and scenery that dance back and forth from folksy stylization to sincere character we can look to works like The Valley Farm Road (1810) by an unknown artist, or to Vue Depuis L'Atelier De L'Artiste from Pablo Picasso— both equal parts experimental and traditional, and blissfully charismatic thereby.
Towboats Along the Yotsugi-Dori Canal from Utagawa Hiroshige boasts that coveted Japanese mountain view, one that graces possibly a majority of Japanese landscape paintings— an irresistible subject matter and compelling expression of calm. And with a similar color palette and scenery, yet an entirely different artistic vision, Helmut Kand’sGlasshouse Trees - Harvest invites an invigorating and fantastical viewpoint that maintains no less of a connection to the natural world from which it is inspired.
Grant Wood, painter of American Gothic fame, carries a special tone with his work that seems an ability to freeze time, as can be seen in the distinctive shadows and careful color gradations of Schoolhouse— affording a peaceful quality and a place to rest the eyes.
And Midbar Yehuda I is just one gorgeous work amongst a collection of other meandering landscapes from Raffi Kaiser that are simultaneously intricate and spacious, delicate and sweeping. They all seem to sing with the raw beauty of a weather-worn terrain and the drama of a sun-drenched expanse.
