What is the secret of the landscapes of famous artists who charge the viewer with "sublime energy"

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Sublime landscape paintings are one of the most enduring and iconic subjects in the history of art: from the dreamy spiers of the Renaissance to the seething romanticism of the 19th century and the experiments of modernity, all this evokes a flurry of emotions, making you sigh enthusiastically, dissolving in the atmosphere created by the artist.

The term “sublime” was defined by the philosopher Edmund Burke in his 1757 study of the origins of our ideas of the sublime and the beautiful. Burke also called the sublime no less than the most powerful emotion that the mind can experience - it is not surprising that artists sought to adopt this style in order to convey the beauty of the captured moment.

1. Pieter Bruegel the Elder

The 1563 painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder "Flight to Egypt" epitomizes the sublime landscape painting of the Northern Renaissance, combining breathtaking landscapes with religious narrative. Tiny figures of Mary and Joseph walk along the perilous cliff in the foreground, fleeing persecution in Bethlehem. The landscape is closely linked to their history, shrouded in darkness and the danger of the unknown. Bruegel sought to contrast the areas of immobility and movement within this unified image, painting rocks and mountains as a steady and immovable constant in comparison with the constantly flowing movement of water, people and birds. This balance of opposites between darkness / light, fragility / permanence and stillness / movement has played a major role in art, where sublime landscape painting has become one of the most enduring images of all time.

2. Philip Jacob Lutherburg

French-born British artist Philip Jacob Lutherburg painted Avalanche in the Alps in 1803, at a time when the picturesque but dangerous French Alps were an increasingly popular epitome of the sublime landscape. In addition to painting, Philip was fond of theater and moonlighted as a theatrical set designer, whose role allowed him to put stunning drama into his canvases through bright lighting, depth and movement.

In his alpine painting, distant French mountains begin to crumble into an avalanche, "spewing out" terrifyingly huge clouds of billowing dust and smoke onto the stage and darkening the sky overhead. A flash of white light in the center draws attention to tiny, frightened figures of people who literally froze in front of the falling stones around. The plot of this picture is both beautiful and terrible, so much so that the viewer stands motionless for several minutes, intently and fascinatedly watching what is happening.

3. Joseph Mallord William Turner

The Blizzard: Hannibal and His Army Crossing the Alps, 1812, epitomizes the agonizing beauty of the Romantic era with monstrous, curved thunderclouds that hover over the little people below. Dedicated to Hannibal Barca, commander of the Carthaginian army in 200-100 BC, the painting depicts Hannibal's soldiers trying to cross the Alps in 218 BC, with Salatian tribes fighting Hannibal's rearguard.

Here the storm becomes a powerful metaphor for the life-threatening struggle, as black, heavy clouds form a terrifying, swirling vortex that repels tiny, helpless soldiers. In the distance, the sun is a shining ball of bewitching light, a glimmer of hope amid the tragedy of war. But aside from narrative references, this sublime Turner's landscape is ultimately a reflection of the sheer, destructive cruelty of nature that threatens to heartlessly engulf the people below.

4. Caspar David Friedrich

One of the most iconic and sublime landscape paintings of all time, German artist Caspar David Friedrich's A Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog, 1817, embodies the dreamy, idealistic spirit of European romanticism. Standing alone on a tall, dark rock, the male figure contemplates his place in the universe as mist swirls over distant valleys and mountains. Frederick renders the sublime landscape here as an inhospitable and incomprehensible locality, reflecting the 19th century charm of wild, unbridled nature.

Unlike other artists of that era, who sought to create small figures to emphasize the greatness of the landscape, Friedrich gives his figure a central role, leaving it completely anonymous, thereby allowing the viewer to immerse himself as much as possible in the mysterious foggy landscape.

5. Karl Eduard Biermann

Karl Eduard Biermann's Mount Wetterhorn, 1830, embodies the German artist's sublime landscape style, with vast, rugged terrain surrounded by dramatic theater lighting. The rocky foreground is carefully painted in rich, dark tones of green and brown, leading the viewer to a strip of trees and rocks that disappear into black shadow. In the background, the epic mountain range is illuminated by a ray of sunlight, accentuating its icy spiers as a mystical and unattainable place, while clouds swarm overhead as if threatening to burst into a storm.

Like many romantic painters, Birman emphasizes the awe, surprise, and terrifying scale of the scene by placing two tiny figures in the foreground that allow the viewer to imagine himself in the place of the main characters, trying to climb uneven rocks and swampy grass, while like a waterfall sweeps past them in the reflections of light.

6. Arnold Böcklin

One of the most strikingly sublime landscape paintings ever created, The Isle of the Dead by German artist Arnold Böcklin, 1880, depicts an imaginary island rising out of the sea against a dark sky. The painting was commissioned by a widow who asked for the painting "to dream." In response to her request, the artist endowed his work with hints of death and mourning. In the foreground, a ghostly white figure is heading towards the island in a small rowing boat next to an object that resembles a coffin.

The rower is compared to the ancient Greek character Charon the boatman, who ferried the souls of the dead across the Styx River to Hades. Rows of menacingly dark cypress trees, traditionally associated with cemeteries, stretch along the island, and jagged luminous rocks behind them wink with grave doors and windows. Unlike many sublime landscapes, an eerie silence permeates the scene, giving it that deep, mysterious atmosphere. Böcklin himself even described the work as "so quiet that a person would be frightened if he heard a knock on the door."

7. Edvard Munch

Edvard Munch created White Night in 1901 in his later career, at a time when he abandoned figuration in favor of atmospheric landscapes, but the same pervasive uneasiness of his early art remained. This sublime landscape painting depicts his native Norway in the middle of winter, looking down through menacingly dark trees at a frozen fjord. The spruce forest forms a jagged edge, sharp as a saw blade, a warning of dangerous ice behind it.

The black trees in the foreground resemble faces or ghostly creatures, but they are barely visible under cover of night. Combining brilliant moonlight with these qualities of danger and threat, Munch's nighttime winter scene captures the sublime beauty of Norwegian winter. Reflecting on how his landscape scenes could combine observation with an inner mind, Edward wrote:

8. Axeli Gallen-Kallela

Lake Keitele by Akseli Gallen-Kallela, 1904, renders the famous Finnish lake as a mesmerizing luminous mirror cut through by zigzag wind currents. The painting was painted at a time when there was a growing desire for independence throughout Finland. Celebrating the country's great unspoiled wildlife, this sublime landscape painting has become a powerful symbol of Finnish nationalism and pride. Although there are no signs of human life here, the natural streams of traffic visible through the water were a well-known feature of the lake.

These lanes were so well known historically that in ancient Finnish culture they were associated with the mythological character Väinämöinen, who was said to leave ripples as he traveled on the lake. These subtle depictions of the movement carried great nationalist symbolism for Gallen-Kallela, celebrating the mysterious and enigmatic beauty of ancient Finnish culture and its close ties to the land. He described them like this:

9. Thomas Moran

The American painter Moran, one of the leaders of the Hudson Schools and the Rocky Mountains, was so fascinated by the dangerously beautiful unspoiled countryside of Colorado that he plunged deeply into the surrounding countryside and atmosphere, where before him few had dared to paint more than thirty scenes depicting this unique, sublime landscape.

Colorado's Grand Canyon captures an idealized and romanticized vision of the Grand Canyon, with sharp rocks falling and disappearing into the light before disappearing into the distant horizon as an impending storm gathers pace overhead. Viewers were so dazzled by Moran's images of the great American wilderness that he is today credited with influencing the creation of a national park system that preserved the integrity of America's majestic landscape.

10. Peter Doig

Scottish artist Peter Doig's 1994 Ski Jacket is a barrage of snowy energy and movement. Based on a photographic image of student skiers scattered across a Japanese mountain, Doig deliberately distorts and degrades the original image by slicing it in half in the middle and re-joining them together to create an eerie Rorschach mirror effect.

Doig is well known for blending photographic material with pictorial signs, allowing two conflicting styles to play with each other, as seen in this image, where carefully painted trees are surrounded by lightly layered stripes of pink, white and green. These watery paint transitions suggest the cold, slippery properties of ice and snow that permeate the image and give it a dangerous ambiguity, heightening the fear of tiny skiers grappling with the treacherous steep terrain around them.

Continuing the topic, read also about works of which Spanish artists are most appreciated all over the world and that was the main reason.