Visit the New Plein Air Blog

Check out the new Plein Air blog at the American Artist community site!

Like Breath on Glass: Whistler, Inness, and the Art of Painting Softly

This exhibition on view at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, in Williamstown, Massachusetts, examines a softer style of landscape painting that emerged during the turn of the century, made popular by James Abbott McNeill Whistler and George Inness.

Thomas Cole's Creative Process

A current exhibition at The Thomas Cole National Historic Site, in Catskill, New York, examines the plein air and studio oil studies Hudson River School founder Thomas Cole created prior to painting some of his greatest landscape paintings.

Letters on Landscape Painting

Asher B. Durand’s “Letters on Landscape Painting” from the mid-1800 publication The Crayon are today considered an invaluable source of information for landscape painters, offering advice that is as evergreen as it is enlightening. Here we present an excerpt of a letter from 1855, in which Durand advises artists to spend considerable time studying and drawing from nature before painting it.

Robert W. Wood: Master of the American Landscape

Jeffrey Morseburg—the owner of Morseburg Galleries, in Los Angeles—has become an expert on the late landscape painter Robert Wood, having learned of the artist through his father’s  personal and professional relationship with Wood, as well as having organized two retrospectives and a website devoted to him. Here Morseburg shares an article he wrote on the life and work of this great American landscape painter.

Nicolas Poussin and Nature

Nicolas Poussin was one of the first painters to legitimize landscape painting as a classical genre and was also one of the first to paint directly from nature. In the May 2008 issue of American Artist, John Parks gives us a look at the life, inspiration, and output of this influential artist, who is also the subject of the “Poussin and Nature: Arcadian Visions” exhibition currently on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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EXHIBITION: J.M.W. Turner

This retrospective features the life work of the great English landscape painter J.M.W. Turner and showcases his incredible ability to capture luminous light and atmosphere.

EXHIBITION: Kindred Spirits: Asher B. Durand and the American Landscape

This exhibition of more than 50 landscape paintings and engravings from Hudson River School artist Asher B. Durand surveys the artist's long career as well as his lasting contribution to the plein air-painting tradition.

The History of the Plein Air Movement

Starting in Rome in the 17th century and eventually making its way around the world, the plein air movement began as a call for artists to reconnect with nature and develop an appreciation for the astounding beauty found therein. More than four centuries later, many of the values and beliefs that birthed the plein air movement are still alive among practitioners of the genre today.