Landscape into Art

by Kenneth M. Clark

An expanded edition of the eminent art historian's 1949 work relates four modes of depicting landscapes to nineteenth-century painting and considers the future of landscape painting

Genres: Art, History, Art History, Nonfiction

264 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1949

About the author

Sir Kenneth Mackenzie Clark (1903 -1983) was a British art historian, museum director, and broadcaster. After running two important art galleries in the 1930s and 1940s, he came to wider public notice on television, presenting a succession of programmes on the arts during the 1950s and 1960s, culminating in the Civilisation series in 1969.

The son of rich parents, Clark was introduced to the arts at an early age. Among his early influences were the writings of John Ruskin, which instilled in him the belief that everyone should have access to great art. After coming under the influence of the connoisseur and dealer Bernard Berenson, Clark was appointed director of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford aged twenty-seven, and three years later he was put in charge of Britain's National Gallery. His twelve years there saw the gallery transformed to make it accessible and inviting to a wider public.

During the Second World War, when the collection was moved from London for safe keeping, Clark made the building available for a series of daily concerts which proved a celebrated morale booster during the Blitz.

After the war, and three years as Slade Professor of Fine Art at Oxford, Clark surprised many by accepting the chairmanship of the UK's first commercial television network. Once the service had been successfully launched he agreed to write and present programmes about the arts. These established him as a household name in Britain, and he was asked to create the first colour series about the arts, Civilisation, first broadcast in 1969 in Britain and in many other countries soon afterwards.

Among many honours, Clark was knighted at the unusually young age of thirty-five, and three decades later was made a life peer shortly before the first transmission of Civilisation. Three decades after his death, Clark was celebrated in an exhibition at Tate Britain in London, prompting a reappraisal of his career by a new generation of critics and historians. Opinions varied about his aesthetic judgment, particularly in attributing paintings to old masters, but his skill as a writer and his enthusiasm for popularising the arts were widely recognised. Both the BBC and the Tate described him in retrospect as one of the most influential figures in British art of the twentieth century.

Reviews

[Roger Brunyate · Rating 4 out of 5]

Still Worth Reading for its Text

After exactly fifty years away, I am returning to my old field as an art historian, in preparation for a course that will use landscape as inspiration for the non-visual arts. Although I have more modern and more lavishly illustrated books on hand—notably Landscape And Memory by Simon Schama and Landscape and Western Art by Malcolm Andrews—I wanted first to return to this 1949 classic that opened my eyes then and I hoped might do so again now. I'm glad that I did; Clark is excellent.

You would not buy this book for the illustrations. There are 132 of them, often of generous size, but all are in black and white. [The hardback edition prints eight plates in color, but so few as not to make much difference.] But nowadays we have the internet, and it is easy to look up the color versions of anything in the book—and also the almost equal number that Clark mentions in the text, but doesn't illustrate. There is a caveat here, however: you are likely to find several versions of the same picture, all slightly—and sometimes grossly—different in color and tone; it takes some experience of gallery-going to guess which is likely to be the most accurate.

But the text still makes you think. It is not so much Clark's prose (though more on that in a moment) as the scope of his overview and the clarity of his thought. Just a glance at the chapter titles says a lot. "The Landscape of Symbols" deals with the Middle Ages and an art where the natural world stood for religious ideas, rather than as a thing of beauty in itself. "The Landscape of Fact" shows the shift to the loving detail of the Van Eycks, Brueghel, and Giovanni Bellini, all the way through to Ruisdael and Vermeer. "Landscape of Fantasy" looks at the first wave of northern Expressionists such as Altdorfer and Grünewald, before moving south to Leonardo and El Greco. "Ideal Landscape" opens with a loving essay on Giorgione before going to Claude and Poussin. The hero of "The Natural Vision" is Constable, who opens the door to the rest of the 19th century and the Impressionists. "The Northern Lights" gives a parallel account of the century, from Turner to Van Gogh. And finally "The Return to Order" moves to the 20th century, with Seurat and Cézanne, to end in the Epilogue with Mondrian and Klee.

The book began as a series of lectures delivered at Oxford, and possibly the author's desire to gather ten centuries of history into discrete themes has led him at times to oversimplify, especially as he approaches his own time. In his 1976 revisions, included here, he adjusts some opinions and fills in gaps. But when I say "oversimplify," I speak comparatively; this is not a book for beginners. Clark knows he is addressing an educated audience: he references numerous artists without explanation, he tosses off the names of galleries, he drops literary references without feeling the need for attribution, and he quotes freely in French without translation. But when he speaks directly in his own voice, he is always stimulating, often poetic, and occasionally superb.

Let me end with three passages, a page or so apart, as Clark reflects on the expressionism of Van Gogh. It is highly personal writing, confident in its opinions, but what a magnificent expression of the mid-century Zeitgeist in a world ravaged by two wars!

And yet van Gogh's light is very different from the pearly radiance of Turner. It is fierce, fitful, and distracting (once more we see the analogy between light and love); it beats upon the brain and can only be exorcised by the most violent symbols, wheels and whorls of fire, and by the brightest, crudest colours which can be squeezed with frenzied urgency from the tube. So in spite of his passion for nature, van Gogh was forced more and more to twist what he saw into an expression of his own despair.

…In 1880, Cézanne and Degas were still classic painters, and the impressionists were all sunshine. It was van Gogh who brought back the sense of tragedy into modern art; and, like Nietzsche and Ruskin, found in madness the only escape from the materialism of the nineteenth century.

…But we should not therefore avert our eyes, in an agony of good taste, from the value of this style at the present time. In an age of violence and hysteria, an age in which standards and traditions are being consciously destroyed, an age, above all, in which we have lost all confidence in the natural order, this may be the only possible means by which the individual human soul can assert its consciousness.

[Uroš Đurković · Rating 5 out of 5]

Superheroj i plemić istorije umetnosti – to je Kenet Klark.

Reći da je Klark jedan od najblistavijih izdanaka britanske akademske gospoštine, bilo bi malko neprikladno, iako to nije daleko od istine. A naučenjačko džentlmenstvo, kako god neki težili da ga pretstave, nije imperijalni poduhvat, već oplemenjivanje u svom najboljem vidu. Neki znalac godinama kristališe znanja, koja sažima i blistavo povezuje, ne bi li napisao knjigu koja je pristupačna gotovo svima – i diletanti i eksperti naći će u njoj nešto vredno, što je, ako mene pitate, jedan od najviših dometa koji može da dostigne neko ko se bavi pisanjem. Jasno, disciplinovano, odmereno, otmeno i čak ponegde duhovito, Klark piše jednu moguću istoriju pejzaža u zapadnoj umetnosti – od srednjeg veka do postimpresionista.

Ne izbegavajući estetske sudove, ali bez apsolutizacije ukusa, Klark vrlo ubedljivo pokazuje kako su se menjali obrasci mišljenja o prirodi kroz slikarstvo. Pejzaž, suprotno onim što se na prvi pogled čini, nije istorijska konstanta (druga, premda slična, tema su (božanski) vrtovi – Eden ili vrt Hesperida, čije je poreklo drevno). Bilo je, štaviše, potrebno formiranje posebne svesti o vrednosti prirode kao relevantne umetničke teme, da bi se osamostalio. Klark tvrdi da je čovek prirodne objekte najpre sagledavao individualno, kao obistinjenje božanske volje i milosti, a da se tek postepeno razvijala mogućnost za nealegorijsko (nesimboličko) viđenje prirode. Logika Sv. Anselma (12. vek) je jasna – ukoliko je naš ovozemaljski život kratak i bedni međučin, onda naše (čulno) okruženje ne zavređuje pažnju. To su, razume se, mnogi umetnici i pratili, ne zbog Anselma, već zbog epohalnog raspoloženja. Međutim, već vek kasnije, dogodiće se neočekivane promene, koje Klark povezuje sa pojavom „hortus conclususa” (zatvoreni vrt). Poreklo ovog motiva nije poznato, kao što nije sasvim najjasnije zbog čega su jednorozi bili česti na tapiserijama 13. veka (uzgred budi rečeno, u Beču sam video jednorogov rog i, koliko su me dobri ljudi uputili, u pitanju je ostatak narvala). Međutim, polako se javlja drukčije uprizorenje prirode (kao u svecvetnoj Madoni Stefana da Zevija iz 15. veka). Ipak, kao prve prave pejzaže simbola, Klark ističe freske u Papinoj palati u Avinjonu.

Ne želeći da pretvorim prikaz u prepričavanje početka, dodao bih samo još nekoliko zanimljivih podataka za srednjovekovni period. Najpre, Klarkov komentar kako realističnost pejzaža prati razvoj istraživanja prirode – što su otkrića intenzivnija, to su prizori prirode uverljiviji, kao i vrlo zanimljiva opaska o priručniku o lovstvu Gastona Febusa, gde se navodi kako slike koje su tu stvarane s ljubavlju, potvrđuju čest paradoks, da čovek uglavnom kroz instinkt za ubijanje dolazi u bliski kontakt sa životom prirode. (Znam da ovo nema neposredne veze sa romanom odličnim romanom Milenka Bodirogića „Po šumama i gorama”, ali taj korak između nasilja i lepote me je smesta vratio na njega.)

Vremenom, od menjanja stvarnosnog statusa prirodnih motiva u delu, izdvaja se nova, vrlo važna tema – svetlo(st). Drukčije uprizorenje svetlosti uz, naravno, izmenjen status prirode kao relevantne teme, Klark naziva „pejzažom činjenice”. Polako se pojavljuje zasićenje svetlom, kao i međuprostor – grad u daljini i više pejzažnih planova. Posebno mi je u pamćenju ostala „Sveta Barbara” Jana van Ajka, gde, zapravo, nedovršenost slike može da se tumači kao igra sa snegom i svetlošću, koja je preteča Brojgela. Od zatvorenog vrta, pažnja umetnika se postepeno usmerava ka „matematiku neba”, čiji je najistaknutiji predstavnik Bruneleski i njegova primena linearne perspektive na arhitekturu (Santa Marija del Fjore).
Delikatnije svetlo i veća preciznost u perspektivi dovela je do pravih likovnih suptilnosti – Belini (Sv. Franja u ekstazi), Veroneze, Đorđone (večno virtuozna renesansna mutivoda).

Na scenu stupaju i flandrijski majstori, za koje Mikelanđelo tvrdi da slikaju kako bi „opsenili vanjsko oko”. Holandski majstori, za razliku od Italijana, težili su da pronađu patos obične prirode (Jakob fon Rojsdal, Verner, Rembrant). Procvat pejzaža u holandskom slikarstvu Klark objašnjava time što su ljudi bili zasićeni verskim ratovima i metežima i da im je bio potreban period mira, ali započinje i vrlo podsticajnu temu – razvoj kapitalizma i slikarstva.

Čitavo poglavlje, kao poseban tip pejzaža, Klark izdvaja „fantastični pejzaž”, koji prvo vezuje za prostore negostoljubivosti, prisutne još od 15. veka, da bi zatim pisao o Grinvaldu, , Altdorferu („Aleksandrova pobeda” – koja uzbudljivo prikazuje granice mogućnosti znanja), Pjeru di Kozimi (videti posebno zanimljivu „Šumsku vatru” – sa licima). Posebna pažnja posvećena je i Leonardu i kretanju vode, El Greku i Rubensu. Postepeno se, baš u kontekstu fantastičnog pejzaža, javlja i noćni pejzaž, koji takođe nije ranije bio prisutan (Adam Elšajmer).

Klark će pisati još i o idealnom pejzažu (srce za Kloda Lorena! i briljantna razmišljanja Dragana Stojanovića o njegovom slikarstvu), naturalističkom načinu gledanja (kjaroskuro prirode + Koro, Ruso, Dobinji), o severnjaštvu Van Goga i Tarnera, sve do Seraa i Sezana. Nakon celog pregleda odškrinjuju se vrata za razmišljanje o post-pejzažu u kontekstu apstraktne umetnosti. I tu dolazi vrlo zanimljivo pitanje: da li možemo da govorimo o podražavanju, npr. mirko ili makrosveta u apstraktnom slikarstvu? Neka platna zaista deluju kao ćelijske organele, a neka kao pogled na polja iz aviona.

Bez obzira na odgovor, pejzaž se pokazao kao izvanredan indikator za izučavanje moderniteta i epohalnih promena u istoriji umetnosti, što, siguran sam, može biti primenjeno i na književnost. Klark u više navrata navodi baš primere iz književnosti – od vrta u „Romanu o ruži”, preko Petrarkinog planinarenja (kao izraza modernog (!) duha), sve do Vordsvortove opčinjenosti prirodom.

Na kraju knjige stoje reprodukcije svih najvažnijih spomenutih dela.
Sve u svemu, gozba za radoznale oči.

[Joe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Clark offers a chronology of the study of Landscape. From the symbolic objects of Medieval art, to the emotion of impressionism.

As alway, Clark is clear in his thoughts, however he does not make those thoughts clear to us. It is only afterwards that you piece it all together. Into a system of development, pushed forth by but a few.

[AC · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was really quite disappointed in this book. The text was inspired, verging often almost on the insipid. And the prints, of course, were all in black/white and so were worthless. In earlier portions of the book, I went from reading to using his selections as a guide (via internet) for thinking about the sequence of his thoughts -- and then eventually, just used Wikipaintings to go through chronologically the artists he discussed. Clark's book itself became irrelevant.

I think the problem was that he spent a lot of time talking about landscape in paintings where the landscape was not the primary focus of the work -- everything up to and prior to Titian's Tempesto falls into this category. As such, there was no real handle for analysis. He was like a man on a train saying: "Oh, look!"

A missed opportunity.

(P.S. 3-stars in my book means "didn't like it". Sorry GR..., I don't follow guidelines...)


(What I have is billed on the cover as the "revised edition". First published in 1949, a New Edition was published in 1976, issued as a paperback in 1979, and subsequently reprinted. I adore landscapes, having never set foot out of a jagged urban or inner suburban setting (barely) in my life..., and so look forward to reading this. For me, looking at Poussin or Corot is becoming like a form of prayer...)

[Don · Rating 2 out of 5]

Kenneth Clark here gives us a broadly chronological history of art as seen through the changing expression of landscape in painting. First published in 1949, it is based on a series of lectures given during Clark’s first year as Slade Professor at Oxford.

It is extraordinarily informative as a general introduction, touching on techniques of composition and use of colour, and the personal lives and career development of some of the artists, as well as discussion of subject matter. It is also extraordinarily erudite – Clark assumes that his reader has fluent Latin and French, as well as familiarity with the full range of artists’ schools and with a huge range of artworks, including some that could (in the late 1940s) be seen only in fairly obscure foreign museums or churches, or in private collections. He clearly had a prodigious and very perceptive eye for composition, painting technique and detail as well as a phenomenal memory.

I read this in its first edition, which has the benefit of over a hundred photographs of paintings to which Clark refers – and it is well worth referring to them to understand better the points he makes. Unfortunately, not only are these photographs in monochrome but Clark also refers to many other paintings, which are not so illustrated. Here the internet comes into its own, and I punctuated my reading with very frequent searches – best, I suggest, to have a large screen available as you read.

Although Clark writes very clearly, he was evidently addressing an audience that he felt was extremely knowledgeable about art from the time of the ancient Greeks to the mid 20th century. I am not all that familiar with the subject (and would have struggled to follow the lectures given in ‘real time’) but even so was able to learn something from this book – and will hope to make future visits to museum galleries with a more educated eye. So it seems that in this, Clark succeeds (as set out by John Ruskin, a co-founder of the Slade chair), in ‘making our English youth care somewhat for the arts’.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

You know, it's a bit absurd that GoodReads wants us to all rate the same edition of each book when the edition used can make such a fundamental difference to our experience of the thing.

[Amadeo Serra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Entre los panoramas del paisaje como género artístico, este libro de Kenneth Clark se erige todavía como un clásico, pese a los cambios recientes en la Historia del Arte y en la representación de la naturaleza en la pintura. Escrito como resultado de su primera etapa en la cátedra Slade de la Universidad de Oxford en 1949, ofrece una revisión temática, no estrictamente cronológica, de la historia de la pintura de paisaje occidental hasta las vanguardias del siglo XX. Si se aceptan estas circunstancias de origen al leer el libro a comienzos del siglo siguiente, cuando los temas de raza, género o diversidad cultural refulgen como focos de interés de nuestro tiempo, se puede disfrutar la prosa brillante, sagaz y elegante del autor como una pauta que nos guíe desde el clasicismo de Grecia y Roma hasta el umbral del arte contemporáneo.
Reacio a la especulación teórica, dotado de una mirada atenta, reflexiva y asimiladora ante la obra pictórica y no exento de sentido del humor, Clark demuestra hasta dónde podía llegar la Historia del Arte de su tiempo para contagiar el entusiasmo y el juicio crítico ante los cuadros sin cargas superfluas de erudición (aquí las escasas notas al pie son jugosos comentarios al margen). Las páginas de este ensayo alientan a disfrutar con la pintura de paisaje y enriquecen el espíritu del lector con esos momentos de visión de los que trató en una célebre conferencia de 1954 recogida en otro libro suyo: las páginas sobre el impresionismo, sobre Leonardo, Poussin y Claude, Constable y Turner o Seurat y Cézanne son memorables, porque iluminan la contemplación y el recuerdo de los paisajes pintados por aquellos artistas con limpidez. El sentido crítico de un agudo conocedor como fue Clark brilla también y hoy nos parece sanamente desacomplejado al establecer jerarquías y categorías de valor, con argumentos y observaciones, no como fruto de un gusto meramente personal.
La excelencia sería indiscutible de no haber omitido a casi todos los pintores españoles (Picasso o Miró son mencionados, no incluidos; es clamorosa la ausencia de Velázquez) y a cualesquiera otros que queden fuera del caudal principal del arte europeo: Italia, Francia, los Países Bajos y Francia.
Escribir un libro de arte con arte no es fácil, pero para Clark casi lo parece porque su elegancia disimula un estilo terso y certero que se puede paladear en la lectura de cada capítulo.

[Mark McTague · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's somewhat odd to give a book four stars when I am fairly sure that I only understood about half of it, but that is due to my deficiency in art history, not to the author's clear prose. And while his expertise is in art history and analysis, his erudition is sufficiently broad that he brings in comparisons to figures and ideas from philosophy and social history, making connections to ideas and motives in landscape painting that made me rue my deficiencies in broad cultural education. I had a similar sensation from reading Barzun's "From Dawn to Decadence: 1500 to the Present: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life," though my undergraduate study of Western European history helped me to follow his discourse and references more closely. Both texts, as well as their authors' easy familiarity with their subject in its larger context, exemplify what it means to be deeply educated.

Despite my struggles with artistic references, I did learn a number of things; one of the major points is that landscape painting per se, which seemed a natural an activity for humans, did not become popular (in the sense of enjoyed and regarded by society at large) until the 19th century, of which it was THE widely regarded art form (though now it appears to have been largely eclipsed by abstract art). To be sure, this book is aimed at an audience familiar with the major artists of the 17th-19th centuries, so that they will more readily follow Clark's analysis and conclusions, and the copious illustrations of landscape paintings helps this. Still, the general reader with an interest in broadening their understanding of landscape painting, its origins and development, will profit from this work.

[Carlton · Rating 4 out of 5]

A magisterial and opinionated overview of landscape painting up to the nineteenth century, based upon the author's 1946 undergraduate lectures at the University of Oxford, with each chapter displaying depth of knowledge of both art and English literature. It is accessible, but as it is dated (1949, with minor revisions in 1976), also makes you realise how much might be assumed knowledge for undergraduates at that time, which is now erudite (for this reader), making me aware of the loss of a common education, or perhaps it has always been such.
The first four chapters (over half the book) set out snapshots from the historical development of landscape painting, which was originally merely the background of religious or figurative painting. Chapters five to seven discuss landscape painting in the nineteenth century, and chapter eight is a brief epilogue looking at early twentieth century art.

Perhaps too many superlatives, but the works that he applies them to are mainly the famous works one expects. And although dated, the introduction by Will Gompertz to the Folio Society edition puts this in its historical context.
The Folio Society edition from 2013 (if you can obtain it second hand) has 147 cross-referenced colour illustrations of works discussed in the text, which make it a joy to read.

[Jesse · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was a well executed look at the subject matter though very Eurocentric. His insight and break down was well written. The only area I think he may have missed on was the influence the East had on artists, particularly those in the later 19th century as the world began to open up and access became available. I'm looking forward to reading some of his other works.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

You will need the Internet or some better reproductions to accompany the sadly B&W images, but this is otherwise terrific -- especially as a prelude to deeper dives into various of the artists treated: it's great as a way of discovering avenues into the works of painters one may have been aware of but not aware that one liked so much.

[James Degnan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book at least 25 years ago and found it pretty memorable. It made me look at art in a new way and appreciate the changing relationship between humans and what we perceive as natural, how threatening it is, what makes it beautiful, and how it is depicted in art. This is one of the few books I would consider rereading.

[Dr Susan Turner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just a joy to read and possess. Met and shared a G&T on the train once from Reading to London in the bar...Sir Kenneth brings art to life and opens your mind to oft familiar images.

[Monica · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book may be better suited for someone more advanced in their studies of art/art history. I am a self-proclaimed beginner, just starting to explore this genre. I was immediately overloaded on names of artists. I did not think that I was able to get a grasp on one artist before the author was on to the next one. I did definitely appreciate the history of the art that was given and the critiques. I like that in the version that I read, the author had made corrections/amendments citing new beliefs and new things learned since the original publishing. I think that I may have been able to get more out of this book if I would have looked up the translations of all the foreign (French?) phrases. Also, I believe some of the pictures cited were missing from the book and not all the citation numbers matched up to the pictures. I could have googled all of this, I suppose, but I just got frustrated instead. What did people do before google? I was looking for a more comprehensive, slower paced introduction to landscape art and didn't really find it here. There was some supposition that the reader was already familiar with some of the artists and some of the works, hence them not being included in the book. The book was written well other than the few problems I've noted and it was written in a language easy to read. I also really appreciated the "Epilogue" which was the most informative of the whole read.

This book also exposed me to a new way of thinking about art. It did examine it more as a science as one "discovery" led to new ideas and progression in the field. I had not viewed art like this previously and thought that it was much more random and based on individual expression but the examples cited in this book and the progression of landscape painting does fit well with this method.

[LandscapeArchitect Books]

Recommended by Tom Turner - author of 'Garden History: Philosophy and Design 2000 BC - 2000 AD' - as one of forty books which - he suggests - every landscape student should have seen. Thanks to the Landscape Information Hub UK. http://www.lih.gre.ac.uk/histhe/books...