Land and Sky

Landscape painting is commonly separated into many categories based on type like the sublime and the picturesque, for instance. What I find interesting is how landscape styles vary from one location to the next. To illustrate my point I will use two perfectly polarized examples, comparing British versus Dutch landscape painting. Traditionally speaking, British landscape painting places a heavy emphasis on the land; rolling hills, cultivatable earth plays the role of the primary subject.

R.R. Reinagle, Landscape and Cattle, c.1823

The horizon line tends to be placed within the upper portion of the picture plane, devoting at least half, if not the majority of the compositional space to land. This, when looking at Britain's colonial past, speaks volumes. As it usually goes in painting, as John Berger notes, art is not only a commodity in and of itself, beyond intrinsic value, art tends to objectify, to display what is valuable, what is desirable. And nothing was more desirable during the period which marks the height of British landscape painting than land. For some prime examples, look at the work of John Constable, who is probably the foremost British Landscape painter.

Dutch landscape painting, or Landschap, takes a completely different formal approach. Traditional Dutch landscapes place emphasis on the sky. Where, in English landscapes, they are, downplayed placing focus on the heavy detailed land. The Dutch sky is emotional, dramatic, turbulent.

Jan van Goyan. Windmill by a River, 1642

Oil on panel, 29,4 x 36,3 cm
National Gallery, London

When looking at a traditional Dutch landscape, it is not hard to imagine why Holland is closely associated to windmills; weather seem to take on a character role. But for Holland, wind plays a role in its cultural identity, it powers the windmill, a beacon of Dutch cultural character.