Painting California: Seascapes and Beach Towns

About this book

Luminous gorgeously realized landscape paintings made en plein air by members of the California Art Club over the past 100 years. This volume showcases 200 works by California Art Club artists who have focused on the evocative seascapes charming seaside towns and beach communities from San Diego to San Francisco demonstrating a breathtaking range of natural settings suffused with atmosphere drama and light. Since the dawn of the twentieth century California has been home to artists from all over America and Europe who aspired to depict the states compelling natural landscapes on canvas. In 1909 these artists founded the California Art Club which stands today as one of the most esteemed painting societies in the United States. This volume which follows Skira Rizzolis luminous California Light: A Century of Landscapes presents more of the clubs distinctive and lush plein air painting an impressionistic style in which painters work outdoors in order to capture the ephemeral moment when the natural lighting of a landscape elevates an already beautiful scene into something sublime. As observed by W.H. Auden Thousands have lived without love not one without water. We as a species are drawn to the seaartists perhaps even more so than others as beautifully evidenced in this book.