Interactive Article

How Three Artists Invite You to Contemplate the Enormity of the World

Experience the vastness of the universe, and our place within it, through awe-inspiring landscape paintings.

By
  • Cassandra Anderson
6 min read
A man and woman stand look away from us toward a moonlit, rocky, coastal inlet with misty, midnight-blue mountains along the horizon in this shadowy, horizontal landscape painting. The sky fills the top two-thirds of the painting, and the people are small in scale against the landscape. Along the horizon, pearl-white clouds float against a lilac-purple and pale pink haze. The sky deepens to ultramarine blue above, and a band of nickel-gray clouds sweeps in across the top edge of the painting to partially obscure the bright white moon, to our right of center. The moonlight gleams on the water below, which winds around the rocky coastline and small islands dotted with trees. Closer to us, the land stretches across the lower edge of the composition. Hulking, rocky formations line the left edge of the painting, and a wooden structure with mossy growth along its roof sits to our right. Long poles lean against the building’s roof. At the lower center of the painting, the woman, to our left, links her arm through the man’s elbow. She wears a long, rust-brown dress and a broad brimmed bonnet, while he wears a dark, knee-length coat and a round cap. They stand near the water’s edge, silhouetted against the bright reflections of the soft purple and pink sky above. Out in the water but close to the shoreline, brown nets hang like slings from a line of twenty-three, irregularly spaced poles. A three-masted ship is anchored near the shore to our right. Two rowboats, one with a person inside, and a few more sailboats are pulled up along a dock beyond the ship. The artist signed and dated the painting in the lower right, “Dahl Januar 1827”.
Johan Christian Dahl, View from Vaekero near Christiania, 1827, oil on canvas, Patrons' Permanent Fund, 1999.99.1
Cassandra Anderson

Interpretive programs manager

Vastness is a key ingredient of awe, and awe is good for us. We encounter vastness when we meet something that exceeds our ordinary frame of reference—something immense, mysterious, complex, or difficult to comprehend. In these moments, we pause (or sometimes are “stopped in our tracks”) and stretch our understanding to make room for what we are experiencing. Accommodating new perspectives is central to awe.

Vastness does not simply refer to physical size. It can be found in an endless horizon or towering tree, and also in the intricate structure of a flower, the depth of a parent’s love, the sweep of history, or the mysteries of the ocean. What matters isn’t how large something is, but how far it extends beyond what we already feel, believe, or understand. Because that frame is personal, so too is our sense of vastness. What inspires awe in one person may leave another unmoved.

Experiences of vastness can shift our self-concept. Faced with something larger than our individual concerns, we may feel small . . . in a good way! We may feel connected to something greater than ourselves. Vastness can help take our focus off ourselves—off our own individual cares and worries—and draw our attention toward our relationships with others, nature, history, and the wider world. By expanding our frame of reference, vastness opens us to awe and interconnectedness.

One way artists convey vastness is through panoramic views of nature. By inviting viewers to gaze toward distant horizons, adopt new perspectives, and reflect on the magnitude of the universe, artists help us appreciate vastness in the world around us.
 

Vastness at the Shore

How does the Norwegian painter Johan Christian Dahl convey vastness in View from Vaekero near Christiania? Consider that by taking your own imaginary “awe walk” through the painting. Zoom in and explore. You might imagine your sensory experience of the place.  What would you feel? Hear? Smell? Touch? Taste?

A man and woman stand look away from us toward a moonlit, rocky, coastal inlet with misty, midnight-blue mountains along the horizon in this shadowy, horizontal landscape painting. The sky fills the top two-thirds of the painting, and the people are small in scale against the landscape. Along the horizon, pearl-white clouds float against a lilac-purple and pale pink haze. The sky deepens to ultramarine blue above, and a band of nickel-gray clouds sweeps in across the top edge of the painting to partially obscure the bright white moon, to our right of center. The moonlight gleams on the water below, which winds around the rocky coastline and small islands dotted with trees. Closer to us, the land stretches across the lower edge of the composition. Hulking, rocky formations line the left edge of the painting, and a wooden structure with mossy growth along its roof sits to our right. Long poles lean against the building’s roof. At the lower center of the painting, the woman, to our left, links her arm through the man’s elbow. She wears a long, rust-brown dress and a broad brimmed bonnet, while he wears a dark, knee-length coat and a round cap. They stand near the water’s edge, silhouetted against the bright reflections of the soft purple and pink sky above. Out in the water but close to the shoreline, brown nets hang like slings from a line of twenty-three, irregularly spaced poles. A three-masted ship is anchored near the shore to our right. Two rowboats, one with a person inside, and a few more sailboats are pulled up along a dock beyond the ship. The artist signed and dated the painting in the lower right, “Dahl Januar 1827”.
Johan Christian Dahl, View from Vaekero near Christiania, 1827, oil on canvas, Patrons' Permanent Fund, 1999.99.1

Now let's look at the painting together.

The couple gazes out at the ocean, inviting us to do the same. Anytime humans look at the sea, we’re only ever seeing a tiny part of it. Its depth, its reach, and its expanse are vast. The scale of the ocean is mysterious and powerful.

 

 

As the moon reflects on the water, we, too can reflect on our place in the world, the passage of time, and the vastness all around us. When have you felt small in relation to nature?

Vastness in the Woods

Hudson River School painter Jasper Francis Cropsey made our next landscape, Autumn—On the Hudson River. Start by taking an imaginary walk through the painting. Zoom and explore and allow your eyes to wander, amble, and meander around the work.

 

We look out onto a sweeping, panoramic view with trees, their leaves fiery orange and red, framing a view of a distant body of water under a sun-streaked sky in this long, horizontal landscape painting. The horizon comes about halfway up the composition, and is lined with hazy mountains and clouds in the deep distance. Close examination slowly reveals minuscule birds tucked into the crimson-red, golden yellow, and deep, sage-green leaves of the trees to either side of the painting. Closest to us, vine-covered, fallen tree trunks and mossy gray boulders line the bottom edge of the canvas. Beyond a trickling waterfall and small pool near the lower left corner, and tiny within the scale of the landscape, a group of three men and their dogs sit and recline around a blanket and a picnic basket, their rifles leaning against a tree nearby. The land sweeps down to a grassy meadow crossed by a meandering stream that winds into the distance, at the center of the painting. Touches of white and gray represent a flock of grazing sheep in the meadow. A low wooden bridge spans the stream to our right, and a few cows drink from the riverbank. Smoke rises from chimneys in a town lining the riverbank and shoreline beyond, and tiny white sails and steamboats dot the waterway. Light pours onto the scene with rays like a starburst from behind a lavender-gray cloud covering the sun, low in the sky. The artist signed the painting as if he had inscribed the flat top of a rock at the lower center of the landscape with his name, the title of the painting, and date: “Autumn – on the Hudson River, J.F Cropsey, London 1860.”
Jasper Francis Cropsey, Autumn - On the Hudson River, 1860, oil on canvas, Gift of the Avalon Foundation, 1963.9.1

Now let's look together.

 

The seasons remind us that nature is constantly in flux, always changing, modeling the cycle of life.

Vastness in a Canyon

Finally we'll turn to a view that takes us far beyond what they eye can see—the Grand Canyon. How does Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma artist Kay WalkingStick convey its vastness in North Rim Temple?

 

 

As the title of the work indicates, this landscape is a spiritual place.

To Consider Vastness in Your Own Life...

Pause. Find a photo, video, or work of art with a vast perspective in it.

Reflect. Consider for a moment your small place in this big view. Consider the vastness of nature, space, and time. 

Imagine. How might you move about your day with a heightened 
awareness of your interconnectedness to something larger than 
yourself?

Repeat this practice, or other ways to cultivate everyday awe, to help you notice, linger in, and appreciate vastness all around us. 

Awe at the National Gallery of Art

Come explore how to nurture an awe mindset.

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