American artists painters gardens of italy

At the end of the nineteenth century, American artists began to demonstrate not only a preference for gardens as an artistic motif but also a growing appreciation for the art of gardening itself.

American artists painters gardens of italy: Choose your favorite italian garden paintings

The importance of the garden as a subject at this time reflects a paradigm shift in attitude toward depicting nature. As America became a settled nation and the frontier closed, artists turned away from large-scale panoramic views of the countryside favored by artists associated with the Hudson River School a few decades earlier. Instead of untamed wilderness, these painters favored intimate and domesticated landscapes.

For artists enamored with Impressionism and interested in capturing the effects of light, there was no better subject than a lush garden under the play of summer sunlight. It was not only painters who were intrigued by the garden. Americans in general were experiencing a mania for gardens. Clubs and magazines sprang up to cater to the multitude of activities associated with flowers and horticulture.

Gardening was widely considered a distinct art form adhering to the same design principles of color, light, shadow, and mass associated with landscape painting. It is the popular belief that a man who practices one of these is an artist…Yet there is a fourth Art of Design which well deserves to rank with them, for it demands quite as much in the way of aesthetic feeling, creative power, and executive skill.

This is the art of which crates beautiful compositions upon the surface of the ground.