PLEIN AIR HERITAGE
In many ways, 19th-century plein air painters were travel reporters, creating images of places that were either the beloved hometowns of their countrymen or unfamiliar, exotic landscapes that were difficult to reach. Frederic E. Church reported on the tropical landscapes of Cuba, Mexico, and South America; British watercolorists documented the architecture of villages and manor homes throughout the United Kingdom; and hundreds of painters recorded timeless scenes of Venice, Italy. Some of those artists were enterprising enough to create and sell prints and large studio paintings from their sketches and plein air studies. Among those was Edward Beyer (1820-1865), who published lithographs as well as moving panoramas for a public eager to know more about the places where the German-born artist set up his easel. In the detail above of Beyer’s lithograph…