Cityscape

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The Dam Square in Amsterdam, by Gerrit Adriaensz Berckheyde, c. 1660 The Dam in Amsterdam, by Gerrit Adriaensz Berckheyde.jpg
The Dam Square in Amsterdam, by Gerrit Adriaensz Berckheyde, c.1660
Tampere, Finland in the 1890s Tampereen Kauppakadun liikennetta vuonna 1893.jpg
Tampere, Finland in the 1890s
Dresden, Germany in the 1890s Dresden photochrom2.jpg
Dresden, Germany in the 1890s
Houses of Parliament, Sunset, 1902, by Claude Monet Monet Houses of Parliament, Sunset.jpg
Houses of Parliament, Sunset, 1902, by Claude Monet
Cityscape of New York in the 1980s Collage by Tom Sulcer circa 1970s.JPG
Cityscape of New York in the 1980s

In the visual arts, a cityscape (urban landscape) is an artistic representation, such as a painting, drawing, print or photograph, of the physical aspects of a city or urban area. It is the urban equivalent of a landscape. Townscape is roughly synonymous with cityscape, though it implies the same difference in urban size and density (and even modernity) implicit in the difference between the words city and town. In urban design the terms refer to the configuration of built forms and interstitial space.

Contents

History of cityscapes in art

From the first century A.D. dates a fresco at the Baths of Trajan in Rome depicting a bird's eye view of an ancient city. [1] In the Middle Ages, cityscapes appeared as a background for portraits and biblical themes. From the 16th up to the 18th century numerous copperplate prints and etchings were made showing cities in bird's eye view. The function of these prints was to provide a map-like overview.

In Ancient China, scroll paintings such as Along the River During the Qingming Festival (Qingming Shanghe Tu) offer a panoramic view of the cities depicted.

Halfway through the 17th century the cityscape became an independent genre in the Netherlands. In his famous View of Delft in 1660–1661 Jan Vermeer painted a quite accurate portrait of the city Delft. Cities like Amsterdam, Haarlem and The Hague also became popular subjects for paintings. Painters from other European countries (i.e., Great Britain, France, Germany) followed the Dutch example. The 18th century was a flourishing period for cityscape painting in Venice (Canaletto, Guardi).

At the end of the 19th century the impressionists focused on the atmosphere and dynamics of everyday life in the city. Suburban and industrial areas, building sites and railway yards also became subjects for cityscapes. During the 20th century attention became focused on abstract and conceptual art, and thus the production of cityscapes declined. American painter Edward Hopper, who stayed loyal to figurative painting, created intriguing images of the American scene. With a revival of figurative art at the end of the 20th century comes a revaluation of the cityscape. Well-known living cityscape painters are Rackstraw Downes, Antonio López García, and Richard Estes. American artist Yvonne Jacquette has made a specialty of aerial cityscapes.

Selected cityscape painters

Selected cityscape photographers

See also

Related Research Articles

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Canaletto</span> Italian painter of landscapes (1697–1768)

Giovanni Antonio Canal, commonly known as Canaletto, was an Italian painter from the Republic of Venice, considered an important member of the 18th-century Venetian school.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Francesco Guardi</span> Italian painter (1712–1793)

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michele Marieschi</span> Italian painter

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The Delft School is a category of mid-17th-century Dutch Golden Age painting named after its main base, Delft. It is best known for genre painting: images of domestic life, views of households, church interiors, courtyards, squares and the streets of that city. Carel Fabritius and Nicolaes Maes are seen as the originators of these localised specialties in the 1640s that were continued in the 1650s by Pieter de Hooch and Johannes Vermeer. Vermeer is the most famous of these painters today. The architectural interiors of Gerard Houckgeest, Emanuel de Witte and Hendrick Cornelisz. van Vliet are also notable contributions. Besides the genres most closely associated with Delft painters, artists in the city continued to produce still life and history paintings, portraits for patrons and the court, and decorative pieces of art that reflect more general tendencies in Dutch art of the period.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marine art</span> Form of figurative art that portrays or draws its main inspiration from the sea

Marine art or maritime art is a form of figurative art that portrays or draws its main inspiration from the sea. Maritime painting is a genre that depicts ships and the sea—a genre particularly strong from the 17th to 19th centuries. In practice the term often covers art showing shipping on rivers and estuaries, beach scenes and all art showing boats, without any rigid distinction - for practical reasons subjects that can be drawn or painted from dry land in fact feature strongly in the genre. Strictly speaking "maritime art" should always include some element of human seafaring, whereas "marine art" would also include pure seascapes with no human element, though this distinction may not be observed in practice.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jan Verkolje</span> Dutch painter (1650–1693)

Jan Verkolje or Johannes Verkolje was a Dutch painter, draughtsman and engraver. He is mainly known for his portraits and genre pieces of elegant couples in interiors and, to a lesser extent, for his religious and mythological compositions. He was a gifted mezzotint artist. Trained in Amsterdam, Verkolje spent his active professional career in Delft where he had access to powerful patrons.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Venetian painting</span> Art from the Republic of Venice

Venetian painting was a major force in Italian Renaissance painting and beyond. Beginning with the work of Giovanni Bellini and his brother Gentile Bellini and their workshops, the major artists of the Venetian school included Giorgione, Titian, Tintoretto (1518–1594), Paolo Veronese (1528–1588) and Jacopo Bassano (1510–1592) and his sons. Considered to give primacy to colour over line, the tradition of the Venetian school contrasted with the Mannerism prevalent in the rest of Italy. The Venetian style exerted great influence upon the subsequent development of Western painting.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Italian Rococo art</span>

Italian Rococo art refers to painting and the plastic arts in Italy during the Rococo period, which went from about the early/mid-18th to the late 18th century.

Jonathan Janson is an American painter and art historian.

<i>View of Delft</i> 1660–1661 painting by Johannes Vermeer

View of Delft is an oil painting by Johannes Vermeer, painted c. 1659–1661. The painting of the Dutch artist's hometown is among his best known. It is one of three known paintings of Delft by Vermeer, along with The Little Street and the lost painting House Standing in Delft, and his only cityscape. According to art historian Emma Barker, cityscapes across water, which were popular in the Netherlands at the time, celebrated the city and its trade. Vermeer's View of Delft has been held in the Dutch Royal Cabinet of Paintings at the Mauritshuis in The Hague since its establishment in 1822.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ben Aronson</span> American painter

Ben Aronson is an American painter living in Massachusetts. His work is represented by Tibor de Nagy Gallery in New York, Jenkins Johnson Gallery in San Francisco, LewAllen Galleries in Santa Fe, and Alpha Gallery in Boston.

References

  1. Eugenio la Rocca: "The Newly Discovered City Fresco from Trajan's Baths, Rome." Imago Mundi Vol. 53 (2001), pp. 121–124.

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