Landscape: A Timeless, Evolving Connection in Art

Landscape is a truly enduring theme in art. It can be found hanging on the walls of art novices, seasoned collectors, and just about everyone in between. Whether it’s a painting, a print, or a photograph, landscape art is not simply a reflection of the world around us — it is a deeply personal and emotional expression of how we connect with nature, place, and memory.

Bluebell Woods

Interestingly, recognising landscape as an art subject in its own right is relatively recent in art history terms. Before the seventeenth century, landscapes were typically reserved for the backgrounds of portraits, or as supporting scenery in artworks focused on myth, religion, or grand historical narratives. It was only later that landscape painting emerged as a standalone genre, flourishing into a broad and beloved tradition. Over the centuries, artists have interpreted the land in countless ways — from classical idealism and naturalistic studies to the bold depictions of urban and industrial scenes.

Today, landscape art is experiencing a powerful resurgence. Artists are reimagining the genre with fresh purpose while preserving its timeless ability to move, inspire, and reconnect us to the world. In contemporary practice, landscape is no longer confined to strict visual realism. It embraces emotional resonance, storytelling, and the exploration of light, colour, and mood.

In my own linocut practice, landscape plays a central role. Pieces like Summer Bothy and The Coming Home Trees capture places not only as they are seen but as they are felt — quiet, meaningful spaces that linger in memory. Handmade in a reduction linocut process, each work is built layer by layer, inviting a more textured, tactile connection to nature.

Landscape’s diversity today is one of its greatest strengths. Some works, like Points of Gold or Ancient Avebury, draw on a recognisable sense of place, while others move towards a more dreamlike interpretation. Dreamscape, for example, deliberately steps away from visual accuracy. Influenced by Klimt’s expressive landscapes, it offers a shimmering, imagined world — not so much a literal view as a feeling or a memory captured in print.

Seascapes, too, form a vital part of landscape art. Coastal pieces such as Sparkling Sails extend the genre’s emotional range, reflecting not just the land we walk upon but the waters that shape our shores and our spirits. Whether it is the peaceful flow of Bluebell Woods or the dawn glow of Stonehenge Sunrise, landscape remains a living, breathing conversation between artist and viewer — a timeless bridge between outer world and inner reflection.

As contemporary artists continue to innovate, using techniques as varied as photography, mixed media, oil, and hand-carved lino, landscape art holds its place as one of the most soulful and enduring forms of creative expression. Through sensitivity to light, movement, memory, and imagination, today’s landscapes — in all their diversity — offer us an invitation: to step into a place, real or dreamed, and to feel at home there.

Thank you

Joanne