A city in paintings by artists, or an urban landscape, is streets and buildings, people and transport, trees and benches. A painter can depict a loving couple wandering along a snowy alley, or a lonely abandoned fountain in an old park; the bright spring sun beating its rays into the windows of shops, or a ringing cavalcade of cars and buses on wet roads. Whatever the subject, the city in paintings by famous artists amazes with its harmony and realism.

Artists began to depict the city in paintings back in the early Middle Ages, but at that time it was used only as a background for biblical scenes. The Italians complemented portraits and compositions with a beautiful view from the window, and many Europeans adopted this technique from them. The first urban landscape was created in Ancient Rome and it is a fresco depicting a city on the walls of Trajan’s public baths. Later, the Old Dutch masters of painting completely rethought the introduction of the urban landscape into the plot of the painting and over time gave it the main role in their works, lovingly describing the world around them.

Depiction of the city in the paintings of famous painters

The advent of oil painting and the increased interest of artists in perspective as a technique of fine art contributed to the allocation of the urban landscape as an autonomous genre, and then its branching into subgenres. Thus, there are several varieties of this direction:

• architectural landscape with an emphasis on buildings and structures;
• veduta: a detailed drawing of the city;
• capriccio: fantasy drawings with fictitious ruins;
• urban studies: skyscrapers, business centers and areas with industrial buildings;
• industrial landscape, which is attributed mainly to Soviet painting (the paintings depict the construction of large industrial facilities).

Thus, as a separate direction of fine art, the urban landscape was formed in the middle of the 17th century. “View of Delft” by Jan Vermeer (Jan Vermeer van Delft) is called the first painting of this genre. In addition, this work is one of Vermeer’s largest works. The viewer enjoys picturesque views of the Delft embankment, calm waters, mighty ships and onlookers who went for a walk.

Another landscape artist from the Netherlands is Pieter Jans Saenredam, who lived his entire life in Haarlem and made his name famous by creating laconic architectural landscapes and church interiors. And the talented stained glass artist and master of painting Jan van der Heyden painted magnificent views of Amsterdam. The artist with extraordinary precision transferred to canvas the appearance of the city, its squares and canals, palaces, churches, residential buildings and public buildings.

The baton of the Dutch was picked up by English, German and French artists. Among the distinguished masters is the British William Turner, who painted the watercolor “The Pantheon, Morning After the Fire”. The background of the painting is as follows: the artist was hired to decorate the rotunda on Oxford Street. Six months after the work was completed, the building burned down. The day after the fire, the artist went to Oxford Street and painted a picture in watercolors, which was later exhibited at the Academy. Another famous work by Turner, “The Grand Canal in Venice”, was painted at the height of the fame of the great Briton. The bright and airy landscape depicts the Grand Venetian Canal with a view of the Church of Santa Maria della Salute, the Doge’s Palace and St. Mark’s Cathedral.

An invaluable contribution to the development of the genre was made by Italian masters, including the famous Venetian painter Giovanni Antonio Canal, who created landscape portraits of two cities – Venice and London. Canaletto, as Giovanni Canale was also called, loved to work outdoors with nature, where he learned to masterfully convey the effect of clouds in the blue sky, transfer to canvas a subtle and barely perceptible play of light and shadow.

Then the capriccio genre appeared, the bright representatives of which were:

• Marco Ricci;
• Francesco Lazzaro Guardi;
• Giovanni Battista Tiepolo.

In addition to fantasy architectural structures, painters painted philosophers, warriors and unusually dressed townspeople strolling past antique statues and ancient ruins.

Veduta – a landscape in its purest form, was formed in the 18th century in the form of drawings, engravings and paintings with a detailed image of the city. Artists inspiredly drew the smallest nuances of streets, buildings, squares, parks and sculptures, extolling the beauty and grandeur of the capitals of European countries and small provincial towns.

By the end of the 19th century, the Impressionists had made a strong showing in creating urban landscapes. Among them were the famous French artists Camille Pissarro and Paul Signac, whose keen and attentive gaze deftly separated the lively atmosphere of everyday life from the general gray views. The focus was on train stations and market squares, boulevards and bridges, cozy old streets and new residential areas. Roofs, hotels, theaters, night clubs, cafes, pillars with advertising posters. Urban landscapes are actively sold at the most popular auctions in the world. For example, Pissarro’s painting “Boulevard Montmartre. Spring Morning” was sold at Sotheby’s in 2014 for a record 32 million dollars. You can buy a beautiful urban or architectural landscape for a very affordable price. Very Important Lot provides contemporary artists with hosting to create an artist website where they can display and directly sell their work.