Landscape

June 18, 2010 Updated Jun 12, 2007 at 6:18 AM EDT

You don't need to travel on distant vacations to find peace and serenity.
It is right here in 21Country.

Curator Sachi Yanari-Rizzo says, “It's kind of nice to bring out things we usually haven't shown in the past. It always looks fresh...things that people haven't seen.”

Things that people haven't seen is not the title of this exhibition at the Fort Wayne Museum of Art, though some of these masterpieces from the museum’s permanent collection have been out of sight for many years.

And to see them again is to be reminded of how differently we view the world.

Indiana painter Homer Davisson is the best known artist here, world famous for his classical landscapes.

This is a spot in the Catskill Mountains.

But Fort Wayne artist Lisa Ransom Smith found a similar view right here in 21Country.

This is the St. Joe River Greenway.

Painter George Winter immortalized another 21Country river before the Civil War.

This is a scene of the Wabash, circa 1851.

This is a landscape too...a garden scene by Alma Thomas.

Curator Sachi Yanari-Rizzo says, “I mean if you think how some formal gardens could be in lines or in circle beds, you can come somehow to see how she originated that idea and took it over from that to just dabs of paint.”

No one would argue that this is a landscape...a spectacular view of the Grand Canyon by Daniel Morper.

But how about this?

What the artist calls a landscape is a three-dimensional glass urn shape, sporting medallions with traditional landscape scenes painted on them.

This is by Robert Duncanson, the first famous African American artist...a scene of New York State painted in 1868.

'The Holy Calm of Nature' is the real title of this exhibition...a clue to the common thread joining all these diverse visions together.

The landscape is a celebration of nature and the serenity it offers us...a place to go when life seems too complicated, or too ugly.

This show just proves that celebration isn't always another pretty face.