American Modernism

Grant Wood, Spring in the Country, 1941.
James Everett Stuart, Mount Hood, 1916.
Rockwell Kent, Mt Assiniboine, 1952.

Muscular in design, and daring in color. These works of American modernism, can teach a lot about the value of simplifying what you see before you in the landscape, to paint the timeless spirit of a place rather than merely its specific physical appearance.

Magic Realism

Rockwell Kent, American, 1882-1971, lilacs, c 1968, 24 x 34 inches.

In works of fantasy or surrealist art the  supernatural is usually immediately obvious, but in Magic Realsim a dream-like or mythic dimension is only subtly implied within a realist framework.

Formalist qualities such as the centrally placed figure, simplified repeated forms,  and the roof lines converging at the point of interest, where the flower is being plucked, produce a kind of dream-like, surreal or magic realist effect. They are a little too synchronistic to be true.

The subject is apparently mundane, but the formality, and stage-like lighting, suggest an event of mythic importance or something occurring in a dream, the significance of which escapes  the conscious mind. 

A touch of Magic Realism can give a landscape a fascinating edginess.