Introduction

The portrayal of landscapes in art shows humanity's constant desire to connect with the natural world. Throughout history, artists have tried to capture the beauty of nature, each epoch adding their individual perspectives and interpretations. In the digital age, rather than waning, our fascination with nature has been invigorated by pressing threats like pollution, extinction, and global warming, driving artists to utilize new technologies and styles to preserve this timeless tradition.

Digital Landscapes

In the realm of generative art, there are a number of artists who have dedicated much of their creativity to reimagining traditional landscape paintings. Leonardo Solaas started his exploration of nature about a year ago with Cyanotypes—a tribute to the early photograms of Anna Atkins and her pioneering collection of British Algae: Cyanotype impressions. Arriving at Before the storm now placed him in the company of (among others) artists like Matt Perkins, M.J. Lindow, Zancan and TenebrisVia and their Cold Mountain, Desert Sun Rising, Garden, Monoliths, and Rain Ritual.

Cyanotypes was (as are the artist's next works) an effort to reproduce a specific kind of depiction of nature—a process that the artist himself explained in the description of The Likeness of a Flower, his follow–up artwork:

This work is an attempt to encapsulate in an algorithm, not the likeness of a flower, but the likeness of a painting of a flower. If, according to a very old definition, art is an imitation of nature, this is an imitation of an imitation – a sort of meta-imitation of nature by means of computer code.

We will find this approach in each of Solaas' successive projects. The artist drew inspiration from expressionist and contemporary painters like Cy Twombly, Philip Maltman or Claudia Lowry, and in his latest work, Before the storm, widened his view to depict an entire landscape.

In the Fields

Flat fields, solitary trees, and a spectacle of whirling clouds in expressive black lines against a white backdrop evoke expressive swirls reminiscent of Vincent van Gogh's iconic paintings.

The stylistic parallels highlight Solaas' exploration of digital emulation of traditional painting styles, and the conception of Before the storm as a generative artwork with hundreds of different iterations mirrors Van Gogh's expressionist approach of painting not the exact landscape that he was inspired by, but rather a representation of several views and situations that culminated in the creation of an artwork.

Before the storm does not merely reproduce Van Gogh's style with the aim of imitation; rather, it seems to draw stylistic inspiration from it and uses it to create a more focused and physical representation of its subject: the brewing of a storm. Billowing clouds and otherwise unseen air currents coalesce and take form, expressing the force of nature and communicating the electricity we might feel when standing in these fields.

Solaas' artwork explores the duality of the need for home and shelter versus the longing for the outdoors and reflects stillness and anticipation. The artwork confronts us with the unsettling closeness of beauty and danger, and the artist uses this sentiment to address the impending threat of a climate catastrophe in the piece's description.

Conclusion

Leonardo Solaas's Before the storm is testament to humanity's enduring fascination with landscapes in art. Through the digital emulation of traditional painting styles, Solaas continues his previous artistic explorations and bridges traditional and digital art. The artwork prompts us not only to contemplate on stillness, anticipation, and the ever-present tension between beauty and danger but also on the delicate balance between human existence and the natural world.