Throughout painting history,
artists have explored and exploited the landscape as a very important theme for
expression. Landscape which generally means any form of portrayal of the earth
in cognisance of
the natural environment is a classical concept for romantic painters. Usually,
it is either a mere portrayal or composition of nature per se, or an assemblage
of nature with human intervention as regards the land, and or with an attendant
body of water to it like the sea or river, etc.
I like to further describe
landscape painting as the artist’s portrayal of any view of countryside, town,
land and sky, water or even sea, in a panoramic, grandiose, local or intimate
style. In drawing and painting landscapes however, all the elements of design
and the ingredients of composition must be brought to bear because in the final
analysis, no matter how colourful or populated your expression may be, if it
tends to make the viewer overtly uncomfortable, then something must be perhaps
technically wrong with it.
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| Watercolour painting: (c) Morgan Nwanguma |
Thus a sense of balance and
harmony must be enjoyed by anyone who views your landscape painting. There must
be a sense of design which welds your composition in a harmonious and rhythmic
fashion: the plains, rolling hills, the rivers or sea, must correspond with the
sky and the entirety of nature, animals, human beings and structures, while
producing a successful ‘piece of visual enjoyment’.
When considering landscapes, I am
forced to bring to mind old masters such as the duo of British greats - JMW
Turner (1775-1851), and John Constable (1776-1837). Turner was an English
landscape painter whose treatment of light and colour is said to have
influenced the French impressionists. These old masters were outstanding and
eloquent in the use of the two most important mediums of painting i.e. oil and
watercolour. Personally, landscape painting is one of my favourite themes, and
it draws with it and for me nostalgia and romantic sentimentalism. Quaint and
natural landscapes especially of (rural) country sides, and even ruins, are
just it for me, while some artists I know are also able to portray urban and
city landscapes in a manner that will make you just fall in love.
