Painters of the early northern Renaissance founded modern Western landscape painting, and developed the first examples of staffage.
van der Weyden
Mentor to Gustave Moreau, his brief career showed his brilliance. Claimed by Ingres to be ‘the Napoleon of painting’.
Because these landscape elements are constrained within the overall work, the artist has complete control over them, something reflected in their reading too. Such cameo landscapes are never awe-inspiring, but subjugate to the whole.
I am going to try getting inside the artistic imagination of important landscape painters, and discovering the vision that each had of the landscape. Here are some hors d’oeuvres.
The Eclectic Light Company 