Cultural landscape

Normally, a painted desert scene and a horse sculpture don’t have very many things in common, if at all. In Passover, Dennis Blagg has created a stunning and realistic painting. In contrast, Hina, sculpted by Deborah Butterfield is an extraordinary sculpture of a resting horse. While the pieces are different art forms, they both convey the beauty of organic forms in nature. Dennis Blagg is an extremely talented artist in the Southwest area, particularly the Big Bend National Park region of…

oil painting View from Mount Holyoke by Thomas Cole is a stunning aerial view of the landscape at Mount Holyoke. The painting was painted at Northampton Massachusetts after a thunderstorm. View from Mount Holyoke was first shown to the world at the National Academy of Design in 1836. The painting was long known as The Oxbow. Using the elements and principles of design, Cole created a masterpiece in American landscape paintings. Cole incorporated many elements of design in View from Mount…

dull and shadowy grays and blues of the valley in the background. Overall, this shift gives the piece an atmospheric quality that holds true to how a person would actually perceive an impending storm. This realism makes it easier to envision the landscape scene and helps viewers develop feelings and emotions on subject matter. Hence, with Bierstadt’s realistic capture of depth and careful use of atmospheric perspective, he is able to transport people to this realistic scene so that they can…

Joseph Mallord William Turner was an English artist who gained notoriety from his landscape paintings that utilize the dynamic lights that illuminate the scenery he builds. Joseph Turner’s work innovated and popularized landscape painting, which laid the foundation for impressionism to come into prevalence after the Romantic period. This is observed in his painting Rockets and Blue Lights, painted in 1840 with oil on canvas. Rockets and Blue Lights displays a coastal view of the ocean that…

Caspar David Friedrich was a key artist in German Romanticism, and his works remain embedded in the art movement’s history. Klosterruine Eldena is a landscape painting done circa 1825 and is one of his many artworks that features his interpretation of the Eldena Abbey. Following the themes of his various other works, the painting depicts the abbey in a manner that is almost hauntingly beautiful. The ruins of the monastery stands tall despite being engulfed in the surrounding greenery. Although…

Sierra Nevada, California is an oil painting, and it is a prime example of a romantic landscape. Bierstadt was a successful artist creating at the end of the of the Romantic period. By referencing this painting, I will be able to analyze and interpret the pre-impressionist idea of nature with the Impressionist’s idea and then put both ideas into conversation with Thoreau’s work, Walden. The Oxbow is a Romantic landscape that idealizes nature and glorifies it in an unnatural way. Cole was one…

Throughout American art, nature has played an important role in depicting a specific time and place in American history or serving as beautiful backdrops to showcase wealth and stature. Weather it is Jutus Engelhardt Kuhn’s portrait of Fig 3.4 Henry Darnall III or Benjamin West’s depicting Fig 4.23 The Death of General Wolfe, we are taken back to a specific time in our country’s history and as we move through time artist like John Vanderlyn’s portrayal of Fig 4.52 The Death of Jane McCrea he…

Starting in the 1860s, the French Impressionism period was sparked by famous artists. Alfred Sisley, an original creator of French Impressionism, debuted with creating landscapes around the Argenteuil area. During the last two productive years of Alfred Sisley’s career, he began to paint paintings of the different environments of moret-sur-loing. Alfred Sisley’s A Turn of the River Loing uses natural colors, the circle of confusion technique, and detailed brushstrokes to create a realistic…

Every year at CMEA, we play set of three songs and there’s a specific pattern to the set. In the pattern of the set, the second song is usually a ballad. This year, our ballad for the set is Kindred Spirits, composed by Brian Balmages. Kindred Spirits was composed for the Browning family after Nicholas Browning had murdered his family on November 1st, 2008. His mother, father and two younger brothers, Gregory and Benjamin, were all shot by Nicholas and passed away. Gregory and Benjamin were both…

The Oxbow, painted by artist Thomas Cole, is a beautiful landscape painting with numerous details and color, used to depict a scene from Mount Holyoke, in Massachusetts, after a thunderstorm. Cole was an American painter, born in England, where he spent the first part of his life. When his family moved to Ohio, he began by painting portraits, but later moved to New York where he began painting landscapes, which he is primarily known for. He experienced great success in New York, and was promoted…