Opening October 10, 2026

From the earliest ancient Sumerian myth to the six-day genesis in the Bible, the inception of the world around us–Earth–and all its living matter, is at the center of human storytelling. Visual depictions vary across cultures, but in the Western world, “landscape” was based on human-centered observation of the natural world. Ancient Greek and Roman painting included landscape, but when it emerged again in the Renaissance, landscape mainly appeared as background to scriptural or mythological scenes.

From Lucas Cranach to Claude Monet, nature’s beauty and magnitude has inspired every generation of artists. Landscape’s evolution is prehistoric, but “pure” landscape–the primary subject of an artist’s endeavor–is a much more recent development. Albrecht Dürer and Pieter Bruegel were the first known European artists to make drawings while crossing the Alps into Italy. Bruegel’s mountain compositions, made popular through his engravings, inspired the Dutch landscape phenomenon.

Later, the transcendental or “sublime” landscape situated humans amidst nature’s overwhelming power. Artists of the Realist and Impressionist movements began painting outdoors, heightening the visual experience of color, climate, and light. The evolution of artists’ interpretations of nature unfolds here across five centuries of painting.

Featured at top right: Asher Brown Durand, Landscape-Composition: In The Catskills (detail), 1848. Oil on canvas. Museum purchase with funds provided by the Gerald and Inez Grant Parker Foundation, 1974.72.