Back to results

University of Wolverhampton

Art, Landscape and Material: Subject into Media

Abstract

dc:description.abstract

A research investigation that illustrates the development of the European landscape tradition as an unbroken interactive and material movement, through discussion of artists from Annibale Carracci (1560-1609) to Richard Long (1945 –). The contribution of each artist within their respective epoch will be used to propose that the subject of landscape has become an actual creative medium, integral to and consistent with the external Plein-Air technique. Thus, presenting a ‘creative narrative’ from the observed into the articulated that will demonstrate how the examination and representation of actual landscapes have become physically used within creative presentations. The study uses key artworks that have been inspired by landscape to show the shift from documentation into interaction with the reality of the natural world. This entails the chronology of the investigation and commences with the concept of Ideal Landscape, established by Carracci, within the late 16th century, through the development of the Plein-Air tradition and culminating with particular emphasis on European landscape artists’ and movements since 1945 that have interacted with actual sites and natural materials: from the ideal to the actual. Furthermore, the European transfer and diffusion of interactive and material based landscape methods, including drawing and painting outside, the collection of organic items and photography, passed and developed from one generation to the next, informs a body of personal creative work. This is a 50/50 co-dependent strand used to illustrate the practical and creative discourses between practitioner and landscape, involving the articulation of actual land materials, found objects and Plein-Air excursions to the drawing locations of previous practitioners’, sketchbooks and journals. The insights provided, by the personal practice and associated theoretical position, aid the evaluation, analysis and description of the evolution of the creative methods inherent in the development of subject into media, but not presently described in historical accounts, therefore, presenting a Material Chronology and thus the original contribution of knowledge for this investigation.

Degree

thesis:*
Name dc:type.qualificationname
PhD
Level dc:type.qualificationlevel
Doctoral
Grantor dc:publisher.institution
University of Wolverhampton
Year dc:date.issued
2010

Author and committee

dc:creator, dc:contributor.*
Author dc:creator
  • Greening, Daniel John
Advisors dc:contributor.advisor
  • Keith Cummings
  • Gwen Heeney
  • Tony Herbert

Subjects

dc:subject × 10

Rights

dc:rights

Chain of custody

source
Harvested from
University of Wolverhampton
Base URL
wlv.openrepository.com/server/oai/request
Last updated
2026-07-24
Source record
OAI-PMH GetRecord
citation

Greening, Daniel John. Art, Landscape and Material: Subject into Media. Doctoral thesis, University of Wolverhampton, 2010.