Cityscapes

Artworks that depict cities viewed from afar. In Western Art, some of the earliest images of architecture date to ancient Rome, such as those in the Etruscan wall paintings at the Villa Boscoreale (ca. 40 B.C.). Though its exact origins are debatable, the modern practice of depicting cityscapes and skylines is often traced to 15th-century developments in the Netherlands, when small views of towns—seen through windows or dotting the background of sweeping landscapes— often adorned paintings, as in the Limbourg Brothers' Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry. These depictions were further developed in 17th-century Venice in the convention of the veduta (Italian for “view”), which reached its apogee as a popular souvenir purchased by aristocrats on the Grand Tour. While the Impressionists captured the hectic and hazy quality of modern life with their views of the boulevards of Europe, the task of truthfully depicting the city in the 19th century fell more and more to photographers