MARYLAND, OH, MARYLAND! Wouldst though be a better place to paint landscapes, I pray!
No such Elizabethan lament is known, but I will attempt to put flesh on the bones of such a poetic plea. That is because Maryland is my home turf, a state which I have scoured in search of evocative vistas to paint.
Home geography will define, limit, or liberate an outdoor painter. If you live in the West, you have mountains, prairies, and deserts. You have a color range that is probably incomparable. And you have the outdoor weather. In Maryland you have what the state has to offer.
As an early colonial state, Maryland has cherished that ambiance. This means that, by design, most of its historic building are in colonial brick. Their designs are square, often with a cupola, and always with white trim. To preserve that historic look, modern architectural planning has followed suit. In Annapolis, for example, the more picturesque parts of town are row upon row of close-in brick. The streets are narrow to boot, crammed with parked cars.
Maryland is also a maritime state. Some of the best local painting is Chesapeake Bay seaside work. However, this is not a state of old ships and romantic-looking fishing boats, as still prevails in New England. Maryland marinas are filled with white fiberglass pleasure boats. Few, if any, romantic ship scenes are on offer.
Despite Maryland’s limitless coastline, both the Chesapeake and the Atlantic, it is mostly marsh. Beside beaches, accessible shorelines are mostly straight. There are very few inlets where a landscape painter can eye overlaps of land and water. Typically, you are left with the water on one side, the land on the other--not a great composition.
As a consolation, the skyscapes of the state can be outstanding. Again, though, you have to paint them over a flat horizon, typically of marshland. The Maryland farmlands are as flat as the marshes. A best possible scene is often a lone two-story Victorian house, buttressed by some large wind-breaking trees, amid a monotonous flatness of corn fields or other.
Maryland does have some famous art towns. At first it was Havre de Grace, where a great river enters the bay, scene of a great bridge. Later came landlocked Easton, which took over the former's role as art center of the Eastern Shore. Still, in these towns, colonial brick prevails, as does the demure Victorian house. Great, if you like painting window frames, gutters, and ornate entrance ways. Rustic barns dot the countryside, but these too have become banal, overlain with galvanized siding and red steel roofing.
In short, the architecture of Maryland lacks the openness of vista, variety of color, and multitude of architectural shapes—ornate or simple, that prevail in Europe to this day. Envy the European painter for this advantage, at least.
Given its climate zone. Maryland does offer four distinct seasons. Unfortunately, the best outdoor painting tome—spring and autumn—are shortest. They are bracketed by long humid summer heat and the ice and snow of winter. As a consolation, the state does have the full array of autumn colors, but I have to say, not presented with as much geographic variety as New England, with its hills, dales, stone outcroppings, and strange northern light. Also, snow scenes need underlying landscape interest, such as rocky mountains—of which Maryland has zero.
Going west, Maryland has its mountain. Still, a uniformity of green is guaranteed by the dominance of White Oaks. Various maples, pines, and poplars are mostly unknown in the state. The painter must take the green of oak and variety, because there is none presented naturally.
Nor is the rise and fall of the western Maryland’s landscape too helpful. The two tallest free-falling waterfalls in Maryland clock at 54 and 17 feet. When the mountains rise and fall, it’s like a wrinkled carpet. Not much drama a contrast—the slopes are always the same color. The granite underlying the state is uniformly gray. It rarely peeks out of the greenery. There are dirt cliffs on the Chesapeake, but these are visible from the land in only a few places—if you can get to them.
Getting to such best vistas is difficult in a built-up state like Maryland. I once toured the entire contours of the coast and ports around Baltimore. There were vistas to be had, to be sure, but every inch of land was private property, strictly NO TRESPASSING. The same is true along most of Maryland coastline. That leaves only marina towns as painting options. And when such towns do arise, well, it’s either brick or commercial dullness down to the water's edge. A typical might be the famous beach towns, from Ocean City on up to Rehoboth. But still, what you have is sandy wastes, private property, and too-cute strip malls for tourism.
There are great landscape painters in Maryland nevertheless--maritime, urban, marshland, western mountains. Historically, our famous painters were portraitists or old-time history painters (of political events). Geography is destiny. The painters of Utah, Montana, the Southern California coast, and the Florida tropics must also have days when it seems the terrain is not giving up spectacular subject matter. Frankly, though, it must not be very often.
In Maryland, with all its pluses, a painter must summon much large doses of imagination to turn it into a landscape wonderland, a place comparable to Italy, New York City, or the Rocky Mountains. We try nevertheless. Oh, Maryland, when will thee serve up thy beauty so that it be easiest, and most joyous, to painteth!