Edgar Payne

Edgar Payne's book "Composition of Outdoor Painting" is often recommended by landscape artists. It may be out of print, but there are often copies to be found online. There are some for sale at
www.amazon.com (A new copy is very expensive).

In the book, Payne categorises various types of composition to help the reader design their paintings rather than simply capturing random snapshots of the landscape. 

These compositional types are not intended to be fixed recipes. The artist should adapt them to use in original ways.

Compositional design does not imply that one is 'fudging' reality, it is simply a means of knowing what to look for when deciding what to paint.

Atmospheric mountains

Top: Edgar Payne

Bottom: Terry Masters. Sierra Lake

WC Piguenit

Kosciusko


William Charles Piguenit, 1836-1914, Australian.

Unassuming and retiring, he shrank from controversy and quietly resigned from the Art Society of New South Wales when it split over the impressionist movement. The first Australian-born artist of note, he delighted in mountain scenery and often chose dramatic subjects for his painting.

Mount Kosciusko is the highest point in Australia.

Read more about Piguenit on a very interesting blog I follow: Art and Architecture, Mainly

Frederick Edwin Church

Great Basin, Mt Katahdin, Maine.

Church has used complementary opposite colors (yellow/violet) for vibrancy, adding yellow to the green lower slopes, and adding subtle hints of violet in the shadows of the cliffs above.

John Glover

Victoria & Albert Museum

Edgar Payne - American

Payne is fairly famous in the US for his images of cowboys riding through canyons; images that were so often copied by later artists that they came to be seen as cliched. 

There's a great strength in the composition of this scene which lifts the work above the run of the mill.

McGurl

Yosemite

Like the windswept snow feathering off the peaks.

Hermann Herzog

Western Landscape, 18.25 x 24.75 inches

Karl von Eckenbrecher

The Auguste Victoria in the Naerofjord (detail) 1900

The strip of white water next to the dark hull of the ship creates a strong tonal contrast which draws the eye to a focal point. The lines in the slopes also lead the eye to this centre of interest.

Carl Gustav Carus

Mountain Scene, Montblanc Group, 1824

The equilateral triangle formed by the valley gives this work a strong sense of design which could otherwise have been overwhelmed by detail. Symmetry gives a sense of calm, even sacredness.

Auguste-Francois Bonheur - French 1824-1884

Mountains with Mist

Friedrich Loos

Guy Rose - American