Where did Nature go?

People are afraid to be alone, maybe. A space without a defined subject leaves the artist by himself. The attention is felt by the artist, to turn toward him rather than a single point he believes he should convey.

Perhaps we're more comfortable identifying with an object that we can point to in space and give a name to, than we are than creating the space, it's self. The artist feels more responsibility in painting an open space before he paints the subject, because to paint the landscape would be a far greater task; he becomes the creator of a world.

Most artists are neurotic in that, they want to mirror their art with their unvented emotions - they project their own image, to make sense of themselves, or for other people to make sense of him.

A landscape is a meditative feeling, egoless, appreciative, and generally satisfied. I think in more recent times, the artist's muse is himself. We live in a time where each person feels the need to identify his personality-type so that he can belong to it's coinciding group.

So overall - people don't want to leave themselves out in the middle of a field like that.

:)

I'm not an expert in art, but I always appreciated the landscape paintings of Monet, Van Gogh and of Japanese artists like Katsushika Hokusai. It's a shame that nature is not painted as much as it used to be.

Art is always an expression of nature wherever you may come across..it encompasses all territories..because it does not always translate as landscapes is of no consequence..for the true artist only processes that which needs to be refined by the artistic process of the individual..at any moment..

What's with all this metaphysical bullshit? Landscapes and realism became less popular because of photography, plain and simple. Any high school art student could have told you that.

Personally, I prefer realism. However, many 21st. Century artists have not had the luxury of living the realism of Nature. Most artists recreate what they visualize and live. (My observation only) feel free to contradict me. I propose that as we move further from Nature our Art will reflect the split from the natural world.

Just because landscape is disappearing from exhibits doesn't mean it's disappearing overall. Galleries have a tendency to chose what they believe will sell or is the current trend, they are in business after all. Landscapes are probably less popular because its not new. John Constable, Caspar David Friedrich, Thomas Cole, Monet, etc.gave the world some damn awesome landscapes for the past several hundred years. But people and artists want to do something new and different, to stand out. Enter Picasso, minimalism, surreallism, and a whole lot of other movements. Did the landscape disappear during those times? No, they just weren't center staged.

Landscapes will always be here, there are always artists who love the subject. (Like my uncle-in-law who just made 50,000$ off one of his canyon landscapes)

It's depressing 'cause it's polluted...we're screwed.

Landscape has nothing to do with contemporary. Currently everything green is all over; adding it to Art it would make the piece feel old and common.

The beauty of contemporary is that it puts aside the old time landscape art. Keep it that way.

I think there are still a lot of people who do landscape type work, my sister does pastel landscapes, she has recently started selling prints and is doing pretty well. I agree that its been relegated to decoration in the art world though, which is a shame.

I look through a lot of movie/ game concept art, some of the coolest stuff i see are fantasy landscapes. I guess this is just a symptom of art being so commercial now, that instead of people doing "fine" art, they find work instead.

Fuck what's "in!" A landscape, like any other subject, can be beautiful or boring, depending on the artist's skill and passion. Abstract is shit. Meaningless. About feeding a line of bullshit, not about the beauty. And that's what it is about - art is supposed to be beautiful and passionate. That's why we dig it.

Personally, I've got to have at least some elements of nature in my paintings - a starry sky above the staring figure, chains of mountains stretching into infinity, a sea of psychdelic mushrooms swirling up around the subject's waist.. Without nature, what do you put around the subject? Buildings are fucking ugly.

So as we distance ourselves from nature, where do we find beauty? In the grey, trash-filled, concrete labrinths of cities? In the overly manicured, ubiquitous sameness of suburbia? On the billboards that line every street, every bus stop, even everybody's god damn clothes! When we see 4000+ ads a day, does this permeate the culture so much that the art begins to look like the ads? Just an attention grabber, without speaking to us as human beings. Without a connection to the natural world, the REAL world, our lives become sad, empty, and of lesser meaning. We have no place. Perhaps the passionless fashion is a direct reflection of this void in our culture; Jasper John's flags and blurs, Elizabeth Peyton's celebrity fixation, and John Currin's inablity to paint anything other than naked women... Nothing is more overdone than nude women - not even landscapes! And just like in the advertisements that dominate our culture, sex sells. Objectification of women sells. We are consumers - we are told to fill our lives with "stuff" because there is no more beauty. We are surrounded by people, surrounded by crap, yet so very self-indulgently alone.

And.. oh my.. I have to stop myself. That was quite a rant. And I could go on.

When Bob Ross died, the joy of painting "happy little trees" died as well.

The same year he passed an art museum displayed a gallery of empty and solid color canvas paintings that some art students did. It was as abstract as you could get and everyone thought it was so marvelous, but in reality it was a funeral for realism and detailed landscape paintings.

Art is a funny industry. I know a guy that for a mere 20 bucks will spray paint the entire side of a van with the most detailed mural of anything you can imagine, and I also know a place that sells clothes hangers duct taped to a mannequin for 500 bucks.

I think this is true. I think many artist are concerning themselves with making things that are as abstract or as beautifuly grotesque as possible. Nothing wrong with that. it's just that I think many artist see the landscapes as not really being art anymore. Almost as if it's too easy, just mearly copy what you see. I think that many artist also see it as decorative art and not all that serious. "oh look pretty." and so they stay away from it, and do what's "IN" at the moment.