This document discusses landscapes in art and asks questions about how artists depict landscapes representationally or abstractly. It examines several paintings in detail, comparing their moods, details, and how they convey interior psychological spaces. Artists discussed include Seurat, Van Gogh, Munch, Matisse, Kandinsky, Gauguin, Miró, Dalí, and Ernst. The document aims to have readers closely analyze landscapes and consider how modern painters used the genre to depict mood and psychological concepts.

1. Landscapes: Real and Imagined

2. Questions
Why might an artist choose to paint abstractly instead of
representationally—depicting figures, shapes, objects, or scenes?
What kinds of choices do artists make when painting?
MoMA Landscapes: Real and Imagined Theme

3. Take a close look at Port-en-Bessin,
Entrance to the Harbor, by Seurat.
• What is going on in the
foreground, the middle ground
and the background?
• What is the mood of this place?
Georges-Pierre Seurat. Port-en-Bessin, Entrance
to the Harbor. 1888
MoMA Landscapes: Real and Imagined Theme

4. Now, take a close look at The Starry
Night, by van Gogh.
• How is it similar to Port-en-
Bessin? How is it different? What
details do you notice?
• Why might this be considered a
‘Symbolist’ work of art?
Vincent van Gogh. The Starry Night. June 1889
MoMA Landscapes: Real and Imagined Theme

5. • How are these paintings similar?
• How are they different?
Let’s compare Seurat and van Gogh
MoMA Landscapes: Real and Imagined
Vincent van Gogh. The Starry Night. June 1889Georges-Pierre Seurat. Port-en-Bessin, Entrance
to the Harbor. 1888

6. Now, take a close look at Melancholy:
Evening on the Shore, by Munch.
• What is happening with the figure
in this landscape? What mood is
being conveyed?
• Would the mood be the same
without the figure? Why or why
not?
MoMA Landscapes: Real and Imagined Theme
Edvard Munch. Melancholy: Evening on the Shore.
1896

7. Now, take a close look at Evening,
Honfleur, by Seurat.
MoMA Landscapes: Real and Imagined Theme
Georges-Pierre Seurat. Evening, Honfleur,
1886
• What is happening in the
foreground, middle ground, and
background? What mood is
being conveyed?

8. Let’s compare the moods of Munch’s
Melancholy: Evening on the Shore to
Seurat’s Evening, Honfleur.
MoMA Landscapes: Real and Imagined
Georges-Pierre Seurat. Evening, Honfleur,
1886
Edvard Munch. Melancholy: Evening on the Shore.
1896

9. Questions
Now that you have generated descriptive words for each image, use them
to have a conversation with a partner:
How did these modern painters convey a sense of mood or interior,
psychological space in their landscapes?
MoMA Landscapes: Real and Imagined Theme

10. MoMA Landscapes: Real and Imagined Theme
Henri Rousseau. The Dream. 1910

11. Let’s look at these two landscapes by
Matisse.
MoMA Landscapes: Real and Imagined
Henri Matisse. Study for "Luxe, calme et
volupté". 1904
Henri Matisse. Landscape at Collioure. 1905

12. Vasily Kandinsky. Picture with an Archer. 1909
MoMA Landscapes: Real and Imagined Theme

13. MoMA Landscapes: Real and Imagined Theme
Paul Gauguin. The Moon and the
Earth. 1893

14. Joan Miró. The Hunter (Catalan Landscape). Montroig, July 1923-winter 1924.
MoMA Landscapes: Real and Imagined Theme

15. Salvador Dalí. The Persistence of Memory. 1931.
MoMA Landscapes: Real and Imagined Theme

16. Max Ernst. Two Children Are Threatened by a
Nightingale. 1924.
MoMA Landscapes: Real and Imagined Theme