sense of place in art?

It's the strength of feeling that you are in a particular place with certain attributes, things that are not directly included in the piece. For instance, Norman Rockwell is a strong craftsman in sense of place. In "Freedom from Hunger", you can almost smell the turkey and feel the distance some of the family have traveled for Thanksgiving dinner. His 'Swimming Hole" evokes the heat and dust of summer, baseball games in the park, bicycles by the side of the stream, and all the other memories of the time.

In contrast, look at a Gilbert Stuart portrait. You may be able to see the age clues in the subject's face, but there is no sense of whether the person is in a top-floor parlor in the city, in the library of the family mansion, or under the bleachers at Wembley. Sense of place generally does not go into a portrait.