The History of the Artistic Landscape Whimsical Landscapes Exhibition at Peninsula Gallery

The landscape painting is one of the most recognizable genres of art. Many of art history's greatest works have been landscapes, with artists from all different ages depicting the environment around them. But just like how earth scenery has transformed over time, so has the nature of the artistic landscape, adapting throughout centuries and movements to reflect our ever-changing environment. Turner, Wyeth, Constable, Van Gogh, Da Vinci, Monet, all artists from different periods, but all representing how the landscape has evolved over the centuries. This May, immerse yourself in scenes of psychedelic color and abstract imagery at our Whimsical Landscapes exhibition. For this show, we invited four artists to our gallery, whose works subvert the traditional landscape by creating surreal and otherworldly depictions. Whimsical Landscapes conceptualizes the conventional landscape painting, asking viewers to challenge our expectations of this iconic genre. While artistic recreations of landscapes can be traced back to 6th century China, it wasn't until the arrival of the Renaissance period in the West that the landscape began to gain prominence. During this period, landscape paintings fell into three broad categories. The picturesque, which showcased the beauty and wildness of natural scenery, unspoiled by human intervention and urbanization. The pastoral, which celebrated humanity's taming of nature, highlighting the inclusion of architecture, scenes of farming, and industrialization. As well as the sublime, a display of the incredible divine power of nature, focusing on the, at times terrifying, power of God's creation over humanity. As art entered the modern age, the landscape transformed from realist to impressionist. The invention of portable oil paint tubes meant artists were no longer confined to their studios, but rather, they could create their paintings on the exact site that they were portraying. The technique, called in-plane-air, is still used today, with many artists embodying the impressionistic approach to landscape paintings. You can see these paintings made in-plane-air in our gallery, with some of our resident artists opting to create their landscapes while surrounded by nature. Moving into the 20th century, landscape art remains highly popular among artists, but it has now taken a much more liberated approach to rendering these scenes. Modern art movements like surrealism, abstraction, photography, and so on, have challenged traditional representation, capturing instead the essence of an environment or the feeling a place evokes. The artists of Whimsical Landscapes all embrace this modernist approach, using their paint not as a tool to create realistic depiction, but rather to reimagine a scene through their artistic eye. Lynn Goldstein's work, while realistic in form, is naturally abstract, drawing viewers into her off-kilter environments. She uses unique techniques and processes to create works that look unnatural, but are still reminiscent of the original scene. I actually used to work very representationally, and I went through a period of change from 2018 to now. And one of the reasons that I did that was because I felt this need to become more abstract in my approach. I use my intuition and also very often my imagination in my paintings. So sometimes I might be using a specific location, but very often the work comes directly from my imagination. And this is very different from the way that ordinary, I guess, landscapes would be created. I tend to use tools that are not necessarily associated with painters. I use trowels, and I use sanders, and I use things like silicone bowl scrapers. And these are all things that end up taking control away from me, so that I then have to work and make the artwork work without control. Ann Guderra-Mady's pastel works are intensely saturated with fiery blood oranges, strong violets and pinks, and electric teals. These striking colors, which are highly exaggerated from the natural world, immediately capture the gaze of any onlooker. Well, I worked in natural colors or local color in the beginning when I started, but I found that I did a lot of plein air work. So if I was doing plein air on a cloudy day, I just was kind of like, I don't like this. And what I found was I was supercharging the colors. I just figured I wanted to make, using color and light, I really wanted to draw the viewer into the piece. Mine are abstract in that they're not about specific place, where the water goes, where the tree goes. It's about capturing the feeling that I had when I saw it. So that feeling of harmony, the feeling of balance, the feeling of peace. So what I'll do is I'll abstract by pushing the color, really making sure I can highlight the light, and the composition is simple and kind of balanced and leads you in. Nilam Puti, who used to work as a computer programmer, uses her graphic design background to create her landscapes. Her acrylic paintings are constructed through minimalist composition, with large swaps of exaggerated color and subtle texture. She is inspired by earth, water, wind, fire, and space, as viewed through the prism of her soul. The broad shapes within Nilam's work make her paintings the most abstract of this collection. Peter Stolvert draws inspiration from modern artists like Jackson Pollock and Mark Tobey, as seen in his otherworldly Ancient Trees. A zoomed-in view of his work may show a chaotic scramble of pigment, but taking a step back reveals the beauty of a sculptural landscape. When I first started painting, my landscapes were very similar to many other landscapes. And when I did an exhibition, I looked at them and said, gee, you know, they look like everyone else's. And how can I do that same form, but using my own techniques, my own inspiration, my own color style, my own painting style, and kind of develop this technique of line on top of line with a lot of texture. And the texture helps me define colors with lights and darks, and it also helps with having the paintings be dynamic. When they're lit in a home, the spectrum of light tends to change during the day, and then the evening when the lights turn on, the spectrum of that changes. And I've noticed that my yellows primarily change in their hue and the way they appear. The texture allows the painting to be somewhat active. So as the light changes, I get a high and a low, depending on the lighting. Whimsical Landscapes is on display from May 6th to the 30th, only at the Peninsula Gallery in Lewis, Delaware. The entire show can be viewed online at peninsula-gallery.com.