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Town And Country: The Landscape In American Art, Sharon L. Gustafson

Sheldon Museum of Art: Catalogs and Publications

The subject of Town and Country: Landscape in American Art seems an appropriate topic particularly in Nebraska where the land plays an integral part in defining our identity. The geography provides us physical sustenance as well as aesthetic nourishment. There is a closeness to the land that is perhaps even more evident in the plains then anywhere else on earth.

Landscape painting became a significant form of artistic expression in the 19th century. No longer merely the idealized backdrop for religious, classical or allegorical subjects, landscape itself became the topic of concentration. The British artist John Constable (1776-1837) and other …