Exercise 1.3: Establishing Conventions

Find 12 examples of 18th and 19th century landscape paintings and list all the commonalities.
Consider your points from ex 1.1. Also try and find paintings from any era that conform to these conventions.

Google search on 18 & 19th century landscape paintings, pg1

Google search on 18th & 19th century landscape paintings, pg 2

For this exercise, the easiest thing for me to do was to do a Google search. As seen in the images above, a lot of the images conform to my 'preconceptions' of the genre as highlighted in exercise 1.1. Idillic countryside, inclusion of water, mountains and also, surprisingly, with the inclusion of people or animals.
I made a note of some of the artists;

• Joseph Rebell (1787-1828)

Google search on Joseph Rebell

• Thomas Gainsborough (1727-1788)

Google search of Thomas Gainsborough

• George Lambert (1700-1765)

Google Search of George Lambert

• Jakob Philipp Hackert (1737-1807)

Google search of Jakob Philipp Hackert paintings

We have a wide selection of paintings just from these four artists when you look at the search results. Paintings of vast country landscapes, with the inclusion of water or even, taking Rebells work, of waterside landscapes. We see mountains, trees, luscious greenery and blue skies with or without cloud detailing. A lot of these paintings also include people or animals, which I dont immediately think of in landscape work and is not in my own preconception but it seems as though it was a common factor during work at this time. 

I found an artist K. Melling (1946), who does paintings of the yorkshire dales and the lake district. He incorporates the same commonalities in his work. 

Google search of K Melling paintings

There are similarities between landscape images even though each scene is different. If I went out for a walk now to photograph a 'preconceived' landscape image, I would not have to go far to find a local scene that incorporates the same factors. But even as the landscape changes through the centuries, the reality is that artists and photographers alike will still strive to create that perfect ''typical landscape' image that we are all so familiar with.

My own image of Bryngarw Park (2013)