Turner to Monet presents a new look at landscape painting in the
nineteenth century. Works by the finest artists of the time –
Turner, Constable, Friedrich, Corot, Courbet, Glover, von
Guérard, Church, Streeton, Roberts, Cézanne, Van Gogh, Gauguin,
Monet – have been gathered from public and private collections
in Australia and from around the world. Landscape, as an
independent genre, developed in Europe during the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries. From its origins as a backdrop for
mythological scenes or history paintings, the art of landscape
flourished first in Italy and the Netherlands. It became the
predominant subject for the first time only about 1800,
particularly in England and Germany. The exhibition shows the
extraordinary variety and possibilities of landscape in the
nineteenth century. It reveals how landscape painting changed,
from portrayals of Classical themes to dramatic and mysterious
Romantic scenes. Artists ventured to exotic terrains, from the
edges of Europe to America and Australia.