Landscape in the Renaissance at the Getty Center

Monday, 09 October 2006 09:01

LOS ANGELES — The Renaissance saw the re-emergence of awareness of the natural world, and with it a desire to describe its character and evoke its qualities.  Motifs observed in nature ranged from a single flower or tree to a distant horizon, and encompassed elements such as rain, atmosphere, and the play of light across a surface.  Landscape in the Renaissance, at the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Getty Center, until October 15, 2006, showcases the rapid and exciting development of landscape settings in the art of the Renaissance, particularly through examples of the Getty Museum’s outstanding collection of illuminated manuscripts of this period.

The exhibition features 23 manuscripts from the collection of the J. Paul Getty Museum, a book from the collections of the Getty Research Institute, and paintings from both the Szépmüvészeti Múzeum, Budapest, Hungary, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, each of which illustrates a different aspect in the representation of landscape.

Towards the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the Renaissance, a more naturalistic style of landscape painting emerged.  The use of color and scale to create the illusion of vast spaces, even within the modest dimensions of illuminated books, is shown to great effect in this exhibition.  Throughout much of the Middle Ages artists focused on narrative, emphasizing figures at the expense of setting.  During the latter part of the Middle Ages, beginning in the late 1300s, artists took a new interest in the observation of nature, and the poetic character of natural surroundings.