Luminist paintings in California.(landscape painters)

In the second half of the nineteenth century a number of American landscape painters created works that featured simple, often severely horizontal compositions depicting lakes, rivers, beaches, and ocean, in which realistic transcriptions of the effect of light on atmosphere became vehicles for the expression of spiritual values. These works were executed in tiny brushstrokes, reducing the presence of the artist's hand and enhancing the illusion that the viewer was staring at a real scene. Many of these landscapes featured low horizon lines and generous expanses of sky creating a sense of a vast universe where the human presence played a minor role. A mood of tranquility ...