Whether as a reaction to our technological present or as a manifestation of fears concerning our environmental future, depictions of the natural world in painting have never seemed more pertinent or urgent. Some of the most ambitious, crucial and intellectually vibrant paintings being created in this century involve the landscape – from a more traditional, perceptual based approach for rendering vistas to a looser, topography-inspired gestural abstraction that blurs the line between form and space, to many other modes in between. Surprisingly, there has not been an ambitious and wide-reaching publication on the subject – until now.