Landscape photography is generally focused around displaying the beautiful views of the world. Rural landscape photography focuses on demonstrating the beauty of the natural world. This can be from wide landscapes of mountains and rivers, to rural houses and trees.

Origin of Landscapes

Landscapes are not only depicted in photography. They have been around for centuries, the earliest findings of landscape art were from Ancient Greece. Although, landscape art wasn’t popular for a very long time as it was seen as something to put in the background of religious art rather than being its own category.

However, in the 16th century, Dutch artists did begin to see it as its own genre of painting, and painters like Gillis van Coninxloo began to paint the Dutch landscapes.

At the same time, the artistic movement of the renaissance was also taking place, and artists began to seek out new forms of expression in art. Because of this, landscape art began to take on a new form. It started to be about the beauty of the environment. This was how Classical Landscape was introduced.

Now that more European painters were interested in landscape art, the competition for quality began to rise, and better and better landscapes were being produced. This also meant that more and more real places were being painted. Additionally, framing became very important, and the positioning of objects in paintings were perfected.

Claude Lorrain was a French painter in the 16th century. In this painting, we see what appears to be the Italian city of Venice. Although this is not a rural landscape, it does show how painters of the time started to focus on the positioning and framing of their paintings. In this example, we can clearly see a main focus and subject, which is the boat in the middle of the painting. Additionally, there are detailed buildings placed on either side of the painting, as to not intrude our line of sight of the sky and the sunset in the background. We can also see people standing in the foreground of the image, which creates an environment in the image and makes the painting feel lively, and makes the viewer feel as if they are in the city at that moment.

After the renaissance period came the industrial revolution. Cities began to grow, factories became more complex and the quality of life of people living in big cities such as London rapidly decreased. Because of the increased population which followed the rise in mass production, the cities were crowded and cramped and they became even more unhygienic than they had been ever before. In opposition to this, some painters of the time began to paint landscapes to demonstrate the beauty of the natural world and how it was much better before the rise of the industrial revolution. This is also called ‘Romanticism’.

An example of a painter that was involved in the romanticism art movement is Edwin Deakin. Edwin Deakin usually painted buildings in cities, such as churches and cathedrals. With this experience, Edwin Deakin learnt how to frame and arrange his paintings, so when he decided to paint the Yosemite Valley he knew where to place the objects in the painting. This painting is a perfect example of this. There is a foreground, middle ground and a background. In each of these, the U-shape of the valley is clearly outlined by the trees and the clifftops. Additionally, the trees in the foreground move away from the viewer and lead the eye to the centre of the image. In the centre of the image, we see the vast cliffs of the Yosemite Valley, however we have nothing to scale the cliffs to, so its size is undetermined. This makes the cliff appear even larger in the painting, and gives the viewer a feeling of sublime.

Sublimity became a common feature of romantic landscape paintings, even through to the 19th century, when landscapes went from paintings to photography.

In the 1940s, Ansel Adams became one of the most notable landscape photographers of all time. His sublime depictions of the Yosemite Valley made waves through society. Adams knew exactly how to show the beauty of the Yosemite Valley. Take this photo for example. The positioning and framing of the trees and cliffs are set to perfection and blend perfectly with the sublime fog that covers the valley below. The cliffs stand on either side of the frame and meet far in the background where the valley opens up and we see a small glimpse of the vast mountains of the rest of the valley. In the foreground, we see the tops of the trees that stand below the hill that Adams stands on. We only see the tops of the trees in the foreground because it keeps all of the trees in the shot in the same consistency. The trees also lead the eye from the foreground to the middle ground, where the fog covers the entire valley. This fog adds mystery to the photo, and when paired with the sublime mountains and cliffs of Yosemite, evokes an even deeper feeling of sublime.

Summary

Overall, Rural landscape photography focuses on many things. The beauty of the landscape, the positioning and arrangement of objects in the frame, the great scale of mountains etc. However, the key element to rural landscape photography is nature. Nature must be the most prevalent aspect of a rural landscape photo.