Sets for our thrust stages can be quite minimal and props have become more complex, so painting props can occupy most of the Paint Shop's team's time. Our workshop is one of the only theatre paint-shops which works on both props and scenery. This often means working simultaneously on several shows. Rebecca Ashley, Head of Scenic Art is responsible for all the paint work, art work and texturing on our productions at home, abroad and on tour. They must be capable of big physical work and meticulous touches. They must at one moment be intuitive creative painters, capable of precise fine art work, and at the next moment, speedy and pragmatic decorators. Focusing also on individual paintings and circumstances under which they were created, Büttner presents descriptions and analysis of the work’s cultural, historical, and aesthetic context.One day our scenic artists might be busy speeding up the natural ageing process by a few hundred years, the next they'll be mixing secret potions to slow it down. Tracing the history of the landscape painting from ancient worlds up to the present day, this richly illustrated book follows the development and evolution of the medium from Albrecht Dürer and Rubens, through Constable and Winslow Homer, to Monet, Rousseau, Georgia O’Keeffe and David Hockeny. Presented chronologically, the book begins with the ancient worlds and the precursors of landscape artists in the Middle Ages and Renaissance including Leonardo da Vinci, Giovanni Bellini and Raphael. This broad selection features celebrated works, but also less famous one. Without further ado, we bring you a selection of our favorite scenery paintings that you can contemplate on.Įditors’ Tip: Landscape Painting: A History by Nils Buttnerįrom the vast world of Western art history, a renowned art historian Nils Büttner has made a selection of paintings portraying nature, as well as dramatic scenes with people and architecture. Throughout the 20th and 21st century, the notion of a landscape evolved greatly and broke all boundaries, becoming a subject for experimentation both in the figurative and abstract art. Inspired by Courbet’s work, painters such as Monet, Pissarro, Renoir, Cezanne or Sisley have spent the majority of their careers exploring and painting this subject.
Gustave Courbet pushed the boundaries of landscape painting with his distinct use of paint and paved the way for the next revolutionary movement – the Impressionism. Still, it wasn’t until the eighteen century that landscape was recognized by the powerful art academies of Italy and France, which led to its complete supremacy in the century that followed. The landscape was perfected by the seventeenth century and it portrayed nature as serene and harmonious, where each tree, animal or rock was carefully placed within the composition.
Idealized landscapes first began in the Netherlands as an alternative to the contemporary religious subject-matter, as the rising Protestant middle class sought secular art. Albert Altdorfer’s Landscape with Footbridge is considered as the first real landscape. These naturalistic elements such as a landscape have sparked a general interest in studying the natural world. It wasn’t until the Renaissance era that artists started painting landscapes as a subject in its own right. Even though the scenery paintings date back to the ancient Greeks and the Romans, after the fall of the Roman Empire nature scenes became just a backdrop for religious stories or a mere setting for human activity.