
William Turner and the roots of modernism
Book series LOUNGE 2 – volume XIII
Editor: Kurt Ries
In painting, the term “landscape” did not exist until the 15th / 16th century. While the frescoes of Roman villas featured nature in their depictions of gardens, medieval art neglected it completely. It was the zeitgeist shift during the Renaissance that restored people’s interest in life before death, thus ringing in the radical changes that eventually led to the modern era. As people turned away from the afterlife, they began to explore nature, which led artists to incorporate perspective into their work.