For this project, I have been taking aesthetic cues from classical landscape paintings in the Art Institute of Chicago, particularly European paintings prior to 1800. Like with present-day digital compositing, the works I've been looking at were really attempting to create a believable rendering of a landscape. Many of the scenes are idealistic, conveying the serenity, wonder, and austerity of the land they depict. The audience is meant to be in some way transported to that space.
By using digital images found using Google, and relatively primitive Photoshop and After Effects techniques to create bogus landscapes with the same compositional elements as these historical paintings, I draw attention to the similarity between artists in history, and modern-day compositors for media productions. Both try to imitate the natural landscape, and both try to transport the viewer into a created world.
Audio is a combination of ambient noise taken in the quiet galleries of the Art Institute of Chicago, two songs sung by the Trinity High School Choir in the Art Institute main stairs on December 8th, 2015, and natural ambient sound found online.
Based on the painting The Gulf of Salerno (1783/85) by Joseph Wright of Derby.
Based on the painting Landscape with the Penitent Saint Jerome (1530/40).
Based on painting The Eruption of Vesuvius (1771) by Pierre-Jacques Volaire.
