Looking back into the history of landscapes I began to look at how landscape photography had evolved from landscape painting. I then began looking at certain movements in detail. One that appealed was the Baroque era. I think my interest lies in Baroque as it is an artistic movement generated as a reaction towards another artistic movement. Looking at the early 20th century art movement Dada for a previous project showed that artistic movements generated to rebel against a cause tend to be very interesting but also short lived and rather noticed.
Aert van der Neer: 1603-1677 Dutch Painter.
What I find really interesting about these landscape paintings compared to the obvious landscape photograph today is the use of people. Modern day landscape photographers barely use people within their shots as they can be distracting to the image. I guess its strange in a way as it wouldn't be wrong to include people within landscape photographs. I suppose its just a thing of our time, just as it was a thing then to include people in the landscapes.
The reason I selected these two images by Aert van der Neer was to highlight the similarities in form. Although two separate paintings the composition of the two are very similar.
There are also some obvious things in these images that occur throughout many landscape shots:
2 thirds sky 1 third land
Tree framing the shot
Central leading lines
Objects within the foreground and the distance
