Exercise 1.3: Establishing conventions.

Exercise 1.3: Establishing conventions.

In gathering these twelve examples I tried to be as random as possible.  I have collected pictures from Britain, Europe and the USA.  The styles and times are different and the subjects, within the theme of landscape, vary.

Thomas Roberts. 1748-1778. Born Co. Waterford.

Many private patrons.  

Painted Irish landscapes to order for his rich land owning patrons, often of their own lands.

Irish Landscape.  Year not known. 

The picture has foreground detail in the form of the men and horses at the right lower edge.  One of the men is dressed in red and it is from this man that the eye is led away up, via the winding stream, to the rest of the image.  The stream itself is bound by high ground on both sides.  The strong tree to the left balances the massive rock outcrop to the right.  The distant hills are pale and indistinct, hinting at depth of view.  It has distinct foreground, mid ground and a background.  The clouds form a neat frame to the picture.  

Gaspar van Wittel.  1653-1736.  Born Amersford, Nederland.

No patrons.  Worked mainly in Italy painting veduti ,tourist pictures, to sell to the rich on their tour of Europe. 

View of Tivoli.  1700.  

This is a very contrived view giving a stylised impression of Tivoli, to make what Gerard Hofnung once called, “--jolly memorials for when you pass away.”  

The foreground has two red figures to the right of centre and another further up to the right.  These red highlights reinforce the diagonal line formed by the top of the acropolis, its base, and the rock outcrop on which the two men in the foreground are standing.  This gives a solidity from which the picture grows.  The two main structures forming the mid ground are connected by a stone bridge with the land on either side leading the eye away to the town behind.  The mass of the acropolis is balanced by the mountains to the left that make up the background.  The river and its waterfall lead the eye up to the mid ground where the diminishing line of buildings finish the job to move the viewer’s attention away to the left edge of the painting.  The birds over the acropolis balance the clouds. 

Thomas Gainsborough.  1727-1788.  Born Sudbury Suffolk.

Painted portraits of, and for, rich patrons after his early landscapes failed to sell in sufficient numbers.

Landscape in Suffolk.  1750.

The feature that leads one through this picture is the winding lane.  It starts to the right of centre in the immediate foreground, angles left to the group of trees and then, after turning back to the right in mid ground, disappears behind the trees on the right and on to the background.  There are strong diagonals in the dark cloud, the trees on the right, and the lane leading from low right to higher left with the pond at he lower left anchoring the scene.  The figure in red gives a focus, and starting point, to the viewer.  

Richard Wilson.  1714-1782.  Born Llanferres, Denbighshire.

Snowdon From Llyn Nantlle. 1766.

This picture has strict foreground, mid ground and background, with the two men, the light on the water, the small central peak, and the distant summit leading the eye up through the landscape.  The more usual red highlight is here replaced by a white highlight in the form of the man in the foreground.  The angles of the framing trees and the sunlit edge to the slope on the left form the diagonals that give the necessary solidity.  The top of the tree acts as a frame and turns the eye back into the picture.  The two rock masses in the mid ground balance each other.  Distance is depicted by a lightening of the the distant features.

While I was researching this picture I came across a photograph of the scene published in The Guardian.  I reproduce it to show the licence taken by the artist in painting this scene.

Gaspar David Friedrich.  1774-1840.  Born Griefswald, Pomerania.

Monk by the Sea.  1808-10.

Painted for exhibition and bought by Friedrich Wilhelm III.

The Monk by the Sea is an allegorical painting.  It was described at the time in the following terms. “The broad expanses of sea and sky emphasise the meagre figure of the monk standing before the vastness of nature and the presence of God.”  

This is a scene that Friedrich may or may not have witnessed but is none the less a powerful image.  A nice example of a single figure in a large landscape.  The monk has been placed about one third in from the left, which gives him presence, and is the anchor for the rest of the picture.  The image is heavily banded horizontally with two conflicting visual directions that counter each other very well.  The first is the opening of the dark clouds at the upper and lower edges towards the left and the other is the fainter areas in the middle cloud that are angled to the right.  The two conflicting signals lead the eye around the image.

John Constable.  1776-1837.  Born Hampstead.

Not very successful in England in his lifetime selling only twenty paintings.

The Haywain 1821.  

The perfect landscape?  

The feeling of depth in The Haywain is not achieved by the fading of colour as distance is increased but by near perfect perspective.  The flat land appears to disappear over a far off horizon.  The picture is anchored by the river edge to the left as it leads up the cottage.  There are three strong diagonals.  The first is the nearside river band, the second is the far side bank, the third is line made by the top of the trees, which is brought to a stop by the lone tree on the river bank.  The red on the horses is a strong focal point in the picture with the meandering stream leading the eye up through the aforementioned diagonals.  The foreground is formed by everything up to the far bank with the haywain the main feature.  The mid ground is formed by the land beyond, and the background is the sky.  The mass of cottage and trees to the left is balanced by the emptiness of the sky to the right.  

Albert Bienstadt.  1830-1902.  Born Solingen, Prussia.

Produced some 500 pictures with the aim of selling them.  Renowned for his rather theatrical paintings of the American west.

Yosemite Valley.  Yellowstone Park. 1868.

The use of light paint and soft focus is used to illustrate distance.  The foreground is sharp and darkened by being in the shadow.  The mid ground is lit  by, what appears to be, a setting sun, while the background is in full sunlight and almost lost in its glare.  The small group of trees in the centre foreground act as the starting point from where one is led up and right by the river.  The main  diagonal is provided by the tops of the trees to the left and the scree of the rock that matches it.  That diagonal is matched by a weaker diagonal formed by the top of the trees in the centre front foreground.  The long mass to the left is balanced by the taller, starker mass to the right.

Camille Pissarro.  1830-1903.  Born St. Thomas.  Danish West Indies.

Impressionist and Post Impressionist.  Painted for exhibition and sale.  

Lordship Lane Station. 1890.

In this picture the lead feature is the railway line, which almost cuts the scene almost in half. It starts from foreground and leads to the centre of the canvas.  Its slight curve softens what could have been a harsh effect.  There is little in the way of foreground detail but the slope of the ground on either side of the line draws ones attention down to the track which leads one up and through the landscape.  There are two diagonals running from top right down to the left.  One is the top of the far hill while the other is a dark wall or fence.  The bulk of the hill to the right is balanced by the single tree to the left.  To the right of this tree, and in the distance, is a road that turns the eye back into the picture.  The feeling of depth is achieved by both a lightening of tone as the picture recedes and by nice use of perspective in both the line and the buildings.  The mid ground is defined by the dark wall/fence and the building line while the background is really only present to the left side by the aforementioned road and the hint of far away hills.  The smoke from the engine forms a pleasing shape with the lone tree.

George Inniss. 1925-1894.  Born Newburgh, New York.

In his early career his carried commission work the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railway Co.  He returned to his first love of recording rural scenes later.

Lackawanna Valley.  1855. 

This is one of his commission works for DL&WRC and features an engine turntable.  The landscape has clear foreground, mid ground and background.  The foreground includes the man in red and tree stumps.  The mid ground starts at the fence bounding the track, road and copse.  It ends at he point where detail fades and scene fades into misty hills.  The train is clearly the star driving into the centre of the scene with its billowing white smoke.  The turntable is part of a burgeoning industrial landscape with smoking chimneys and trackside buildings.  The various triangular shapes in the lower part of the scene give the solid foundation through which the train and its track lead us.  The line formed by the man and the tree form the base from the view starts.  The lone tall tree acts as a solid frame to the left side and forces ones attention into the landscape rather that out.  

Niagara.  1889.

How different from the work above.  Here Inniss is clearly painting for himself.  It is free flowing and Turner like in its style.  The picture has three distinct zones.  The foreground is represented by the promontory with its onlookers who are highlighted by their white and orange dress.  The falls themselves dominate the mid ground.  The height of the falls is demonstrated at by the presence of the people on the promontory.  The background is filled with what look like factory building, one of which is discharging filthy brown smoke.  Is this an early criticism of man despoiling his environment?  The smoke drifting to the left leads one in that direction only to be returned by the rightwards slope of the promontory.

Two very different landscapes by the same artist.

Anonymous.

English Landscape.  18th C.

Obeying all the rules but failing to engage.  The foreground is clear and brightly painted with the ubiquitous man in red, plus others, and what may be an alfresco meal.  The tree to the right acts as a framing device and turns the viewers eye back into the picture.  The scale of objects in the mid ground fail to match their surroundings or each other.  The back ground is a mish-mash of unconnected features.  The presence of the water feature should lead the eye through the scene but singularly fails to do so with the red man cutting it off where it turns. The excess action to the left side of the picture also prevents ones attention from moving on.

Alfred Sisley.  1839-1899.  Born paris but retained British citizenship.

Had private income and painted for pleasure.

The Loing Canal at Morat.  1892.  Impressionist.

The perspective and depth of this painting is left to the accurate recording of the scene.  It is almost photographic in its pursuit of the truth.  The diagonals starting in the lower left corner lead the eye easily up and into the meat of the picture.  The trees frame the bridge and balance each other very well.  

The conventions.

The landscapes featured above cover two centuries and a number of styles.  There are however conventions that early photographers must have been seen and used and others that, although aware of, were not available to them.  

The most obvious technique not available was the use of colour.  This meant no red highlights to draw in the eye.  Even the use of a tonal hi or lo light must have been difficult to the early photographer.

The photographer, unlike the painter, was unable to rearrange the scene to suit himself; a tree missing from a scene stayed missing, an unbalanced scene could be rectified only by moving to a position where it was balanced.  

The use of powerful diagonals to anchor a picture were available to them, as was the conventions of using people in a picture to act as a size reference or to act as a focal point.  

The use of perspective in its various forms:

Linear.               Things getting small as they recede into the distance.

Atmospheric.     Objects becoming blurry and misty as they recede.

Colour or tone.  Colour was not available but tonal changes were.

Planar.              Single or multiple use of vanishing points. 

The balancing of bodies of mass within the landscape:

Large against large.

Low against tall.

Mass against nothing.

High against high. 

The use of a small person within a landscape.

The use of foreground, mid ground, and background.

The use of a feature such as water, a road, or a track to lead the viewer either into or through the landscape.

The use of the golden thirds to bring strength and an asymmetric balance to the picture.

The concept of there being an argument, a feature, as the centre of attention in the landscape.  

The idea of the frame or parergon was also there for them to see and use.

Landscape photographs from any era.

In my selection I have chosen landscapes from the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries and from both America and Britain.

They each follow one or more of the conventions listed above.

Carleton Watkins.

Vernal Falls, Yosemite Park.  1868.  A survey Photograph.

Contains well defined fore, mid and back grounds with the perception of depth given by tone and linear effects.  The river takes one from the foreground up to the falls where ones eye is led on to the large rock which forms the background.  There is a strong diagonal line from the rock on the right through the river bank and leading to the bottom left corner.  The waterfall splits the picture in half with the two halves nicely balanced by the mass of the two rock formations.

Unknown.  

Queensboro Bridge looking to Manhattan.  Early 20th C.  Bridge finished 1909.

This is a powerful picture of the near complete bridge.  The taking of the image from just off centre has added a strong diagonal to the image.  Starting at the lower left corner one is led in to the centre of the scene and the towers that form the bridge proper.  Although these towers appear small in the scene their height is clearly seen when compared to their surroundings.  The small group of buildings in the lower right are balanced by the knot of buildings about halfway up on the left.  The use of single point planar, linear and atmospheric perception effects give the image an immense depth. 

  

David Keocherian.  

Infra red Landscape.  Daily Mail 2013.

The use of infra red film for this image has led to a very frosty feel as the greens have all been changed to an icy white.  The water surface is so smooth and turgid it could almost be ice.  The composition follows the conventions of the earlier painters closely.  The angled body of water leading through the image from the lower left to the centre.   Two nice diagonals in the trees and bushes to the left reinforce the lead given by the river.   There is a neat return made by the houses on the right.  Although the two canoeists are paddling out of the image the ripples they leave behind them lead back into it.  The use of reflections in the water has allowed for a mid height horizon line.  The large light area on the left bank is countered by the brooding dark of the houses on the right.

Could easily have been a 19th C painting.

Timothy O’Sullivan.

Brown Park, Colorado.  1872.  Taken as a record.

This is such a large vista O’Sullivan has put in a lone figure to give some impression of the immense scale and size if it.  There are distinct zones with the foreground consisting of the aforementioned man and his rock.  The mid ground extends to, and includes, everything except the far hazy hills.  The river leads us through these various parts and gives us a good idea how this valley was formed.  Linear and atmospheric perspective. 

Ansel Adams.

Church, Taos Pueblo National Historic Landmark, New Mexico.  1941.

A much more complicated image than the others, partly because of the tight cropping of the image.  The feature that takes one into the picture is the open gate which in turn takes one past the church on to the land behind.  The wall and main building have been treated as one would two hills and used them to balance one another.  There are strong anchoring angles formed by the sloping roofs that give a feeling of solidity.  Despite its shallow depth it still manages to have a foreground, a mid ground and a background.

Serigrapher.  Flickr name.

View from Shining Tor.  2012.

A very pleasing landscape that has a clear anchoring foreground that leads out into the image.  The meandering road is the device that takes one through the mid ground and on to the background.   There are subtle diagonal in the shape of field edges that lead one around the rest of the image.  There is a valley that lead off towards the top right that gives another lead.  The argument in this landscape is the Tor on the vertical midline and bisecting the horizon.  

David Byrne.  Landscape Artist of the Year. 2012.  Later disqualified for over manipulation of this image.

Boats at Lindisfarne. 

  

This is not the scene as seen by David when he captured it but is still a  stunning print.  The use of the island to make the third argument in the image is well made, as is the use of the diagonal shadows to give depth and strength to the foreground.  The lowering clouds add the loneliness felt in the image.  The series of triangles leading up the left edge give support to the island.  

Conclussions.

Not only were early photographers well aware of the artistic conventions of their day but they employed them widely and adapted them for their medium.  The use of a particular form of perspective is rather forced on the photographer by what is in front of him but by slightly changing with viewing angle to one side or the other he can reinforce or negate the effect of it.  By raising of lowering his view point he can enhance or flatten the feeling of depth.  When viewing modern paintings it is easy to see that not only did past painters affected photographers but that today’s painters and photographers feed off each other.  While scouring the web for these images I sometimes had to blow up a thumbnail to full size to see whether it was a painting or a photograph.