My Favorite Mountain Landscapes

Lower Yellowstone Falls (1881),
Albert Bierstadt

I seem to gravitate toward landscapes, both paintings and photographs. In March 2020, I posted Colorful Landscapes & Outdoor Photographs - Naturalism & Atmosphere. Then in April 2020, I followed with Spectacularly Scenic Grand Canyon, Arizona - Natural Wonder, documenting our road trip that included the fabulous Grand Canyon. I've already shared My Favorite Landscapes with Trees, from April 2023. Now it's time to focus on the subject of mountains in paintings. Prussian-born (1830-1902), German-American painter, Albert Bierstadt was part of the Western Expansion of the United States. Starting with his paintings of the Yosemite Valley in 1868, he was commissioned by the Railroad to paint the Grand Canyon and surrounding region. Having visited Yellowstone National Park in July 2024, I appreciate this dreamlike rendition of the falls.

Mountain Waterfall, Bob Ross

Atmospheric landscapes are difficult to get right, unless you're TV's Bob Ross, who makes it look easy. In The Joy of Painting, Ross was a master of capturing reflections and including happy little bushes that lived in his foregrounds. In May 2023, I posted about Reflections in Art.

Castle on Height near Geneva (1836), Turner

I love landscapes that have dramatic lighting and layering, hazy skies, and atmospheric effects to enhance depth. Such is the case with the painting of English Romantic painter and watercolorist  J. M. W. Turner (1775-1851). You can see his watercolor, Castle on Height near Geneva at the Art Institute of Chicago. He's buried in St. Paul's Cathedral next to Sir Joshua Reynolds, English painter to the King, who is famous for his portraits. Turner's last words were, "The sun is God".

The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone (1872), Moran

American painter, Thomas Moran (1837-1926), like Bierstadt, was part of the Hudson River School and studied the works of J.M.W. Turner. Moran's paintings imbue dramatic lighting and magnificent depth, as in The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. It's like he's leading you into a lost city of gold, out of an Indiana Jones movie!

Sea of Ice (1824), Friedrich

Not a mountain of rock, but a tower of ice, German Romantic Landscape painter, Caspar David Friedrich, captured this layered seascape of icebergs. It's both dramatic and unconventional!

Wanderer above the Sea of Fog
(1818), Friedrich

Friedrich's Wanderer above the Sea of Fog (1818) is another painting with layers of mountains, showing a rear-facing figure (Rückenfigur) of a man standing in silhouette atop a craggy rock and looking out over the mist. His composition is a rearranged view of the Elbe Sandstone Mountains, a range bordering the state of Saxony in southeastern Germany and the North Bohemian region of the Czech Republic. 

The Hunters in the Snow (1565),
Pieter Bruegel the Elder

My favorite mountain landscape is this snow scene by Flemish Renaissance painter, Pieter Bruegel the Elder. The scene was contrived from Bruegel's memories, although there is no such mountain village in the Netherlands with such an Alpine view. A large framed print of this masterpiece hung for years in my Dad's accounting office at Price Waterhouse in New York City on 6th Avenue and the Avenue of the Americas. For a while I possessed it, but alas I don't remember what happened to it ;-(

Pattern and Repetition in Art

I'm inspired by the paisley and floral pattern in my wife's checkbook cover by designer Vera Bradley. Repetition of line, shape or color can be decorative, add harmony, or create movement or rhythm in a composition. Artists use repetition and pattern to create interest in their paintings. Patterns can be natural or organic, geometric, regular vs. irregular, or man-made.  It's also fun to doodle using Zentangles to create your own unique patterns. And, yes, there is organized doodling!

Sunflower Center

Natural or organic patterns may be found in nature, including symmetries, spirals, and fractals, often explained by mathematical principles. Some examples are the spiral of the exterior or interior of a seashell, flowers or the center of a sunflower, and the fur of animals such as leopards' spots. A pineapple is a natural example of a tessellation.

Broadway Boogie-Woogie (1942-43), Mondrian

Irregular patterns are used in the abstract art of Dutch painter Piet Mondrian. I used this example in teaching an art lesson to kindergarteners in which we used colored paper strips to create randomly patterned compositions.

Mondrian-inspired LINE Compositions

Students were limited to the number of strips (5) they could use, but they were allowed to cut them into any number of smaller lengths. They were allowed to overlap to create depth and negative space on the black background. Our discussion was however limited to talking about the art element of LINE. See Kindergarten Art Projects for more ideas.

Diamonds by Victor Vasarely

I tend to use Victor Vasarely and Mark Rothko artwork when teaching about geometric patterns. See my Op & Pop Artists post for more geometric patterns. Such diamond shapes may also help students understand the perspective angles of cubic volumes.

My 5th-graders created their own Op Art using carefully woven strips of contrasting colored paper and wavy lines. These were my own examples.

Metamorphosis II (1939-40), Escher

Although more organic, Dutch graphic artist M.C. Escher famously created patterns, tessellations and optical illusions. His tessellations are really impressive, such as Metamorphosis II. One direction has birds, while the other has fish.

I love Escher's staircases, which remind me of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. I wonder if his work inspired J.K. Rowling. 

Another category of patterns is man-made, which may be found in brick walls (~tessellations), buildings, and other architectural elements. I also enjoy seeing wallpaper patterns, though it is a bygone style of interior design that is often considered old-school.

Shantavia Beale II (2012), Wiley

I am in awe of the portraits painted by African American artist Kehinde Wiley. He uses natural and floral patterns as backgrounds for his beautiful portraits. This portrait is from his New Republic Exhibition, which I visited at the Seattle Art Museum in 2016. He has also painted portraits of the Obamas.

Floral Study in Gold (1907), Klimt

Austrian Symbolist Gustav Klimt used pattern to decorate his canvases, often surrounding figures of women and couples like Wiley does today. The spiral symbols evoke the Zentangles of today. His golden phase lasted from 1901-09. His favorite model was Adele Bloch-Bauer, much like Helga Testorf was for Andrew Wyeth. 

Andy Warhol, American Pop and Visual Artist, began his portfolio series on the subject of Marilyn Monroe in 1967, in which he repeatedly used the same publicity photo image of the iconic actress. While visiting the Palm Springs Museum of Art (PSAM) in 2018, Warhol's work was being exhibited there. Only the color scheme was varied.

Dessert: Harmony in Red (1908), Matisse

My favorite artist who successfully used pattern is French Fauvist, Henri Matisse. See my 2020 post entitled, Top 15 Paintings that Use Primary Colors -- Red, Yellow, and Blue. Notice how the tablecloth blends into the wallpaper in the background. Now that's taking a decorative element too far! I like it, but imagine living with that red on the walls of your home. You'd always be hungry!