Twentieth-century artists have had a passion for nature and the landscape.
American artists are the fortunate inheritors of two traditions.
The first tradition harks back to the 19th century and such landscape-painting pioneers as Thomas Cole, Frederick Church, and Albert Bierstadt. Their absorption with the American landscape was translated through realistic and naturalistic images. The second tradition comes from the 20th century. Rather than marked by a single style, the century is marked by varied explorations into the formal and conceptual character of painting. Landscapes could be equally diverse and contradictory whether they represented the southwest desert or the New Jersey Turnpike.