Landscape is a subject of seemingly infinite variation and imaginative possibility. The Paul G. Allen Family Collection reveals a marked interest in innovative artists' reflections on the land and sea. The works in the collection span over four hundred years, chronicling key developments in painting and art history. This book uses the Allen Family Collection to explore the evolution of landscape painting through the ages.

The artists in the collection represent a who's who of masters of the landscape tradition. The book opens with a series of masterpieces by Jan Brueghel that serve as a starting point for understanding the historical trajectory of landscape painting, before moving on to 18th-century artists Canaletto and Moran and Impressionists such as Cezanne, Van Gogh, and Monet. Rounding out the survey are works by modern and contemporary visionaries including Max Ernst, Thomas Hart Benton, Edward Hopper, and David Hockney. Thirty-nine paintings in all are featured in book, each accompanied by detailed essays that comprise a full discussion of the formal intellectual development of the landscape form.