As his style became more distinctive, he painted fine religious set-pieces, and some superb and enigmatic secular works.
Rosa
What are accessories or ‘staffage’, what narrative, and what intrinsic to the reading and style of a landscape?
The visual tradition of a stairway to heaven appears quite recent. I propose that Blake was its originator.
From the early years of landscape painting as a genre in its own right, artists have used it to depict the awe-inspiring but fascinating horrors of the sublime.
The Eclectic Light Company 