William Tyron

Henry Cooke White in Hartford, Connecticut. His career in art was founded at the age of 14 after meeting the famous American Tonalist painter, Dwight William Tyron. The two became lifelong friends, and White even wrote Tyron’s major biography, The Life and Art of Dwight William Tyron (published in 1930). In the late 1880s, Tyron pushed White to move to New York City to further his artistic training at the Art Students League. During this time, White studied under many talented artists including Kenyon Cox, John H. Twatchman and William Merritt Chase. From 1896–97, White spent time traveling in Europe. Upon his return to the states, he began to spend most of his time in Connecticut, following his favorite painting seasons. Spring in Hartford was followed a week later by spring in Old Lyme, and then finally at Waterford. He would experience his favorite seasons three times over each year. Once immersed into Connecticut’s community, White was encouraged to paint habitually in Old Lyme where an art colony was developing, beginning in the spring of 1903. Inspired by European artists, including Claude Monet, and Pierre Auguste-Renoir, the Old Lyme Art Colony defined American Impressionism by memorializing the serene qualities of rural New England life through the use of vibrant palettes and broken strokes on wood and canvas. The Colony comprised upwards of 200 artists during its three decades of creating nature-based scenes in oils and pastels such as Frederick Childe Hassam, Willard Metcalf and Henry Cooke White amongst the rest. Henry C. White had come to be known for his paintings, pastels and etchings of the Connecticut landscape. The Old Lyme Art Colony has been described as one of America’s most distinguished art colonies. In 1910, he founded the Connecticut Academy of Fine Arts and stayed active with the group until late in his life. He continued to paint into his early 80s and died during his 91st year in Waterford in 1952.

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.