Luminism is a style of nineteenth-century American landscape painting known for its careful treatment of light, atmosphere, stillness, and expansive natural scenery. Luminist paintings often use subtle changes in tone, reflected light, atmospheric haze, and smooth surfaces to create a sense of depth and tranquility...
The history of landscape photography begins long before the invention of the camera. Painters were already trying to answer many of the same questions photographers face today: how to show a three-dimensional subject on a flat surface, how to convey scale, how to guide the eye through an image, and how to translate the experience of being in a place into something that can live on a wall...
Some of the most influential and famous landscape photographers in American history built their work around the national parks and landscapes of the American West. From Carleton Watkins and William Henry Jackson to Ansel Adams, Eliot Porter, and Galen Rowell, their photographs helped define how generations of viewers—and photographers—learned to see wilderness...
