Carolyn Schrock, Mountain Meadow III, pastel on pastel panel, 18 x 24.
“Poets make the best topographers,” the English historian W.G. Hoskins once said. Had he considered the work of visual artists, Hoskins might have extended this praise to include painters, too. Landscape painters, after all, translate topographies not into words on a page but into poetic images on canvas, sharing their unique impressions with viewers. By doing so, they chart not just the surface of a place but the very emotion it evokes. In the following pages, explore a sampling of painters who portray the world’s landscapes in a range of styles, from photorealistic to impressionistic, as only an artist can.