I'm starting out the New Year (2021) with some thought about themes. I think we are all tending towards abstraction, so I want to give a little introduction today into the history of abstraction, as it applies to landscape. I found this great article at Ideelart.com , and I'll quote a bit here, then hope you go check out the entire article: What Landscape Art Gave Abstraction In the Mid-1800s, landscape artists began utilizing a style of painting called “plein-air,” or open-air painting. Plein-air brought painters away from their studios to paint outside. This instantly made landscape painting the most sensual way a painter could work. Compare the alternatives of historic or religious paintings, portraits, slices-of-life, still lives or animal scenes. Plein-air painting offered a world of sensual delights, such as the flickering of light off water, the changing colors of the sky, the miraculous multitude of colors lines and forms in nature. Plein-air painting contribut