Introduction

The concept of landscape emerged in European culture as a pictorial genre that began to be valued from the seventeenth century and reached its maximum expression in the nineteenth century, from Romanticism to Impressionism. After the predominance of urban scenes in the 20th century, the natural landscape has returned to the limelight in the current century due to the possibilities afforded by digital technology, as well as the concern generated by the deterioration of nature and the environmental threat of climate change. If in the beginning the landscape allowed us to dream with the idea of paradise and gave shape to unknown or remote places, today it is again relevant in art with the hybridization of images, with imagined spaces and with other visions of the sublime.

With the title 'Horizon and Limit', two terms linked to the perception of the territory, this exhibition focused on the idea of landscape as a representation of nature that simulates reality from pure artifice. The starting point of the exhibition was landscape works from the Contemporary Art Collection of the "la Caixa" Foundation, which were related to works from the historical past from various institutions and recent creations by contemporary artists that reveal visual equivalences despite the differences in historical context. The exhibition was structured in four thematic areas that address the landscape from fiction, cultural and artistic codes, the notion of reality and objectivity and environmental awareness.

Curated by Nimfa Bisbe and Manolo Laguillo.