James Hagen

Jane Bloodgood-Abrams is largely celebrated for her awe-inspiring landscapes influenced by Hudson River School painters, Frederic Church and Thomas Cole. Bloodgood-Abrams has become one of the area’s most celebrated artists, gracing viewers with her compositions of sky, river and earth. Being less concerned with documenting specific scenes, Bloodgood-Abrams is focused on capturing nature’s essence, “the deeply profound moments, where there is a connection to a vital energy.” Her process begins with being in nature, where she allows the emotional energy of the landscape to filter through her psyche. The memory is then translated onto canvas after being worked over some time with layers of paint that is applied, wiped away and reworked. The result is a radiantly dramatic remembrance of Bloodgood-Abram’s encounter with “something beyond everyday life." The artist’s final hope is for these images to evoke remembrances within the viewer's relationship with nature. She was born in Queens, New York. She received her Bachelor’s of Fine Arts from the College of Saint Rose in Albany, in 1985. Three years later, she earned a Master’s of Fine Arts at the State University of New York in New Paltz. Now she paints in the Hudson River Valley and the Berkshires.

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.