In order to truly see nature anew and not merely register it, habitual perception must be made more difficult…
“[by] merely suggesting rather than sharply delineating objects, emphasising ambiguity and openness, employing serial methods, and including the viewer in art [a painting] becomes an incarnation of the creative process.”
— Art historian Karin Sagner-Dychting writing about Monet’s late paintings, Monet and Modernism, page 29
Or put another way: look harder and don’t put in so much meticulous detail. Don’t tell everything in a painting, leave parts open to interpretation for people to determine their own story from it. Don’t have detail across the whole painting down to the single brush hair level, but let what looks real from a little distance dissolve into pieces of colour as you look closely. It’s far more interesting.
Staying away from adding that extra bit detail is difficult, but reminders like this help!
The perfect rule to paint representational landscapes. Camille Corot, Singer Sargent or Giorgio Morandi for instance are also good models. Contemporary Marc Dalessio is a good example too. Pieter Bruegel the Elder was not because he wanted (artistically) to tell anecdotal stories to the beholders, the life of a whole village for instance… Anecdote or not anecdote, that is… ! Incidentally, what to say about modern hyperrealistic painters as Richard Estes, that is another story?