Understanding Light in the Landscape

The Carlson Theory of Angles

The Trout Stream Oil John F. Carlson

One of the clearest ways for artists to understand and simplify the complexity of a landscape was explained by John F. Carlson in his book originally published in 1929, Carlson’s Guide to Landscape Painting. It remains an excellent and lucid guide for contemporary plein air landscape artists. We refer to it often and use it as a critical tool in teaching our own students.

Carlson wrote, “In landscape painting the thing that is of importance to artistic expression is the ‘landscape sense,’ a sense that makes us feel the weight of the mountain, feel the float of a cloud, feel the rhythmic reach of a tree, the hardness of a stone.”

It can be a difficult proposition to experience the sense of the landscape and to then translate that sense into a painting. Part of this translation involves the ability to simplify the landscape into its essences. Seeing in terms of shapes and colors and suppressing our learned need to iden…