Francis Bacon Study Of A Bull

Edward Robert Smythe was born in Ipswich, U.K., in 1810 to James Smyth and Sarah Harriet née Skitter. Edward attended the school of Robert Burcham Clamp and had a liking for a military career but his love of art took his fancy. Elected a member of the Ipswich Society of Professional and Amateur Artists in March of 1832 and attended his first meeting on November 18th, where he was probably working under Henry Davy and met many local artist members. In his younger days he had a studio in the Old Shire Hall, Ipswich, where he painted with such artists as Samuel Read, Walter Hagreen, Frederick Russel and Robert Burrows.

Around 1840, Smythe moved to Norwich to study the Norwich School of painting, where he became acquainted with Robert Ladbrooke’s son, Frederick, and is said to have worked with John Sell Cotman but returned to Ipswich some five years later, taking a house in Bramford Road. He married at Ipswich in 1848 — Ellen Bowman of Ipswich — and there, his first child, Edward Robert, was born the following year. In 1851, he lived in Elmswell, Suffolk with his 24-year-old wife, Ellen, and son but later that year moved to 3 Angel Hill, Bury St Edmunds, where he kept company with his friend Fred Ladbrooke. By 1861, still at Angel Hill, they had more children at Bury St Edmunds: Francis (Frank) Rowland 1852, Ellen Kate 1854 and Mary Emily 1856, their daughter Louisa Jane, died at Angel Hill, Bury St Edmund’s on April 7, 1861, aged three years and seven months. He exhibited at the Suffolk Fine Arts Association at the New Lecture Hall of the Mechanics' Institution, Ipswich, in August 1850, several oil paintings including "Chapel Viaduct, Colne Valley," "A Group of Animals," "A Sketch Ploughing," "Ponies and a Dog" and "A Landscape" and a watercolour "The Ruling Passion strong in Death" and was also a member and exhibitor at the Ipswich Art Club 1886–98. He also exhibited five works at the Royal Academy, including "View in the Colne Valley at Chappel, Essex" and exhibited five works at the British Institution, including "Pony and Boy" and "The Village Blacksmith."

In 1865, Edward was living at 98 Risbygate Street, Bury St Edmunds, and his wife died at 69 Risbygate Street, Bury St Edmunds in 1879, aged 52. By 1891, he had moved in with his married daughter Ellen Kate, who had married George Robert Chilvers, a tobacco manufacturer, at Burlington Lodge, 30 Burlington Road, Ipswich, where he died on 5 July 1899, aged 88, and was buried in Ipswich cemetery three days later. Five of his paintings were on show at the Centenary exhibition of the Ipswich Art Club in 1974 — a pastel, "Crossing the Stream" and oils "Beach Scene," "Knife Grinders" and "The Squires Son" and a drawing "Gipsies by the Wayside." Over the years, he has regained some of the prestige that he held during his lifetime, and his oil "Woolpit Horse Fair" fetched £39,650 at Bonhams London auction in 2011.

It could be argued that cave walls were the canvases for the world’s first landscape paintings, which depict and elevate natural scenery through art, but there is a richer history to consider.

The Netherlands was home to landscapes as a major theme in painting as early as the 1500s, and ink-on-silk paintings in China featured mountains and large bodies of water as far back as the third century. Greeks created vast wall paintings that depicted landscapes and grandiose garden scenes, while in the late 15th century and early 16th century, landscapes were increasingly the subject of watercolor works by the likes of Leonardo da Vinci and Fra Bartolomeo.

The popularity of religious paintings eventually declined altogether, and by the early 19th century, painters of classical landscapes took to painting out-of-doors (plein-air painting). Paintings of natural scenery were increasingly realistic but romanticized too. Into the 20th century, landscapes remained a major theme for many artists, and while the term “landscape painting” may call to mind images of lush, grassy fields and open seascapes, the genre is characterized by more variety, colors and diverse styles than you may think. Painters working in the photorealist style of landscape painting, for example, seek to create works so lifelike that you may confuse their paint for camera pixels. But if you’re shopping for art to outfit an important room, the work needs to be something with a bit of gravitas (and the right frame is important, too).

Adding a landscape painting to your home can introduce peace and serenity within the confines of your own space. (Some may think of it as an aspirational window of sorts rather than a canvas.) Abstract landscape paintings by the likes of Korean painter Seungyoon Choi or Georgia-based artist Katherine Sandoz, on the other hand, bring pops of color and movement into a room. These landscapes refuse to serve as a background. Elsewhere, Adam Straus’s technology-inspired paintings highlight how our extreme involvement with our devices has removed us from the glory of the world around us. Influenced by modern life and steeped in social commentary, Straus’s landscape paintings make us see our surroundings anew.

Whether you’re seeking works by the world’s most notable names or those authored by underground legends, find a vast collection of landscape paintings on 1stDibs.