1836 -1910, American / American Landscape and Realism, 598 works
1849 -1916, American / American Landscape and Impressionism, 656 works
1830 -1902, American / Romanticism , Hudson River School , and American Landscape, 531 works
1833 -1905, American / American Landscape , Hudson River School , and American Pre-Raphaelites, 456 works
1837 -1926, American / Romanticism , Hudson River School , and American Landscape, 406 works
1825 -1894, American / American Landscape, 353 works
1837 -1908, American / Hudson River School and American Landscape, 310 works
1823 -1900, American / American Landscape , Romanticism , and Hudson River School, 298 works
1816 -1872, American / Hudson River School , American Landscape , and Realism, 238 works
1826 -1900, American / Hudson River School , Romanticism , and American Landscape, 228 works
1823 -1880, American / American Landscape and Hudson River School, 224 works
1820 -1910, American / American Landscape and Hudson River School, 181 works
1801 -1848, British / American Landscape , Romanticism , and Hudson River School, 180 works
1847 -1919, American / Romanticism and American Landscape, 179 works
1796 -1886, American / American Landscape , Romanticism , and Hudson River School, 149 works
1829 -1908, British / American Landscape , Romanticism , and Hudson River School, 147 works
1864 -1929, American / California Impressionism and American Landscape, 139 works
1824 -1879, American / American Landscape, 134 works
1857 -1937, American / American Landscape, 96 works
1793 -1856, American / American Landscape and Hudson River School, 88 works
1779 -1851, British / American Landscape, 85 works
1823 -1894, Scottish / Hudson River School , American Landscape , and Romanticism, 73 works
1852 -1917, American / American Landscape, 70 works
1821 -1872, American / American Landscape and Hudson River School, 65 works
1828 -1901, American / American Landscape and Hudson River School, 53 works
1749 -1831, American / American Landscape, 48 works
1814 -1872, American / American Landscape, 43 works
1811 -1893, American / Hudson River School and American Landscape, 35 works
1850 -1932, American / American Landscape, 32 works
1842 -1914, American / American Landscape, 24 works
Landscape painting became its style during the Dutch Golden Age in the 17th century, when religious art became less popular in a Protestant society. In Europe, landscapes went from being the backgrounds of portraits of wealthy landowners to being a highly regarded art form. During the 18th and 19th centuries, Romantic painters made the natural world have symbolic and mythical meanings as a reaction to the scientific advances of the Enlightenment.
At the beginning of the 19th century, landscape painting became the most popular type of American art. It showed idealized images of a vast, untouched wilderness, which reflected a country whose identity and belief in its endless possibilities was deeply tied to its natural environment. As the American frontier moved further west, landscape artists painted pictures of the disappearing wilderness and the growing presence of modern civilization. These paintings either showed their patrons how significant industrial development was or reminded them of what progress costs.
Thomas Cole started the Hudson River School in the second half of the 19th century. Its artists made huge paintings that tried to show the vastness of the American landscape and encourage people to look at its beauty. Albert Bierstadt and some of the other Hudson River School artists did works that focused more on the raw, scary power of nature. In the 1870s, Thomas Moran's paintings of the Yellowstone River helped Congress decide to make the area around Yellowstone a national park.
By the start of the 20th century, romantic views of nature were replaced by urbanization themes and a longing for the quiet of untouched natural spaces. In the 1920s, Robert Henri led a group of New York artists called the "Ashcan School" or "Urban Realists," who painted scenes of dirty cities. The Regionalist Painters were a group of artists who did most of their work in the Midwest in the 1930s. They included Grant Wood, Thomas Hart Benton, John Steuart Curry, Marvin Cone, and less well-known artists. Their portraits praised the work and way of life of rural agrarian America.
European art movements like abstract expressionism and cubism have influenced how modern American artists have painted landscapes. Charles Sheeler painted industrial landscapes in a style that foreshadowed photorealism. Edward Hopper painted urban and rural landscapes in a looser, more painterly style. Georgia O'Keeffe did works that turned the natural world into organic abstractions. Milton Avery's minimalist style led to the pure color fields.