subject: Basic Information Regarding Abstract Landscape Art [print this page] There is a long standing debate regarding this form of art and whether it should be considered expressionism, but to some it is just unrecognizable. Real life images can be plain and boring many times, but the same image done in an abstract can be incredibly intriguing. Abstract landscape art also is difficult to label or place in a particular category.
The main idea behind this particular type of painting is that the formal parts of the painting are as important as the qualities it is meant to represent. Due to the difficulty and debate of what is actually considered to be labeled as abstract, there are variations and degrees assigned. To whatever degree it is placed it this particular category, it is considered to be apart from reality.
A hillside drawing done crudely can be boring and uninspiring, but completely transformed by adding color and perhaps texture. In doing this it indicates how formal qualities; the colors added to the picture, make a significant difference to the image; the actual drawing. Plato provides us with this theory and he believed that colored lines and circles were not only beautiful, but eternally beautiful.
Plato also explained that there was no reason for the image to be an exact replica of reality. He believed that non-natural images were eternally-beautiful. These types of images included circles, lines, squares, etc.
Claude Monet was the founder of French impressionism; the new style of painting during the 1860's and 1870's. Monet, Camille Pissaro and Alfred Sisley all devoted their talents to the painting of landscapes. Their method was based a great deal on the play of light on the surface of the object.
Beginning in 1899, Monet focused on water lilies which were painted in his own garden. This is actually the beginning of the truest for of abstract art or variations of it. He is considered to be one of the leading painters of landscapes in the history of all Western art.
The first impressionist exhibition was organized during 1874 in Paris by Monet, Berthe Morisot and Alfred Sisley. Impression was first used at this time by a noted art critic at this exhibition; labeling the new movement. Monet created approximately two-hundred fifty oil paintings during thirty of his last years.
