Camille Pissarro's landscape entitled Orchards in Bloom, Louveciennes (1872) was one of the first Impressionist paintings to be displayed. The use of buildings and trees to frame paintings and the ability to capture light or fleeting cloud shadows on a hillside changed the art world forever. Can we see what the artist saw? By forgoing absolute realism, but still creating landscapes that were recognizable, the Impressionists opened the floodgates for color and shape to become the focus. By the 20th century, abstract art strived to not depict any 'likeness' to reality at all. But what if there is a middle ground, a shift away from realism in order to capture life and light in the moment but not abstract enough that color and shape denies the viewer anything recognizable – like semi-abstract landscape art? Like abstract figurative art, this movement can fall on the spectrum between realism and complete abstraction and in our selection of works, artists like Liliane Paumier paint “life itself", depicting harmony in their use of color when rendering rural motifs. Suiting vast compositions, semi-abstract landscape art can broaden the frame of the artist and allow them to take a snapshot of what the eye can't see…yet still recognizes – you only have to tumble into the abyss of artists like Christelle Desangles to find out…
