Land Transformed

In the early 1900s, landscape painters searched for a new visual language with which to represent a rapidly changing world. As cities grew and the industrial landscape emerged, artists used geometric forms to depict the forces of modernization, such as ports, factories, industrial farms and power stations.

Despite this change in style, many landscape paintings continued to emphasize beauty and direct experience in nature. Ideas of progress were counterbalanced by works in which artists reaffirmed the rural and natural realities of their specific regions. Other painters sought solitary and remote experiences in order to achieve an authentic or spiritual connection with nature.