Landscape Theory Part 1

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Do curso por University of Zurich

Asian Environmental Humanities: Landscapes in Transition

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University of Zurich

Asian Environmental Humanities: Landscapes in Transition

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In this course, featuring many researchers from the University of Zurich and international institutions, we will introduce you to some of the most vibrant cultural trends addressing landscape appreciation, degradation, protection, and rehabilitation that currently circulate in the Asian hemisphere. You will learn about concepts of landscape in Asian religions, philosophy, social sciences, history and the arts and their reverberation in selected environmental projects in China, India and Japan. Furthermore, we will discuss how they are critically reflected upon in the context of the environmental humanities, and observe how an interdisciplinary approach towards regional ecosystems past and present reaches out beyond pragmatic technological solutions to mitigate environmental damage. Following us on our different paths and trajectories through the five modules of the course, you will encounter many of the reasons why environmental humanities study projects which strive to change people’s prevalent attitudes, values and behavioural patterns in order to redeem the rapidly globalizing crisis, and how they go about it. Having acquainted yourself with the stories Asia’s landscapes – and landscape representations – tell about actual and possible human-nature relationships, you can compare and evaluate their potential to bring about the desired change and define your own range of actions as an informed stakeholder for creating a sustainable future. What is arguably no less intriguing: you will learn how to appreciate a broad range of eco-aesthetic forms that re-enchant our lives by creatively interacting with the more-than-human world. You can follow the five modules of the course consecutively or just study the modules that interest you the most. If you want to earn a certificate, you need to complete all of the modules including the quizzes at the end of each module. THESE ARE THE TOPICS OF THE 5 MODULES OF THIS COURSE: Module 1: Concepts of landscape past and present and their cosmological underpinnings. Module 2: Entangled landscapes comprising cultural flows of concepts and forms, contemporary gardens on the move, nostalgic elegies of demolished sites and rural reconstruction projects. Module 3: Discussion of two religious communities in India (the Parsi-Zoroastrians and the Auroville community) and their relationship with the environment. Module 4: Environmental debates tackling religious concepts and social practices and the problem of waste disposal in India. Module 5: Environmental movements and the impact of Fukushima on attitudes towards nuclear energy in Japan, creative activism including arts projects and documentaries to protest against pollution and landscape degradation and raise environmental awareness in the Sinosphere, and emergent concepts for sustainable community life on the planet.

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The Roots and Routes of Asian Environmental Thought

We will begin this course by tracing historical ways of thinking about the environment in China. Through a range of examples, traditional notions of “nature” and “landscape“ will be introduced. These will be compared with modern transcultural and Western concepts. After studying a selection of key concepts pertaining to the construction of landscape (shanshui) as an aesthetic category, we will visit two sites in Switzerland where ancient and modern landscape art works from China are collected and made accessible to a wider public. Finally, we will look more closely into one historically and culturally formative theme in Chinese eco-aesthetic practice, namely the representation of human bodies as landscapes and vice versa. We will argue that the tradition of imagining, and mapping, bodies as structurally and materially embedded in the cosmic body has inspired ancient and modern artists to reflect critically upon the place and role of human beings in the world at large.

Landscape Theory Part 17:00

Landscape Theory Part 29:22

Museum Rietberg Chinese Landscape Art Collection9:51

Shanshui in Modern Art26:16

Conheça os instrutores

Andrea Riemenschnitter
Prof.
Institute of Asian and Oriental Studies

In this video, we will discuss concepts

of landscape in theory and the arts.

We will encounter different terms and definitions for

landscape across many disciplines, and finish by exploring a Chinese equivalent

to the Western cultural tradition of shaping and representing natural scenery.

The etymology of the English word captures the meaning of land as a natural

environment that has undergone some kind of spatial organization by humans

which results in framed aesthetically pleasing views.

In China, shanshui is a term that had entered the aesthetic realm as early as

between the fourth and fifth centuries of the common era.

This was a time when many court officials withdrew from service and

appreciated landscapes rather than dealing with court intrigues.

This development produced famous poetry and artworks.

In this context, the term shanshui became popular.

It is composed of the characters for mountain and water and

refers to cultural landscape representations.

There are also words for other aspects of landscape.

For example tianyuan,

meaning “fields and gardens”,

which is a term used for pastoral landscapes.

In other words, it foregrounds the beauty of domesticated landscapes, created for

human shelter and agricultural uses.

Fengjing is a term for natural scenery as such, not painted or

utilized in literature,

while jingguan relates more to the result of landscape architects’ work.

In English, landscape is such a widely used term that people may get into

trouble when trying to define what it means.

So, let us first look for

an answer to the question: What is a landscape? Spontaneously

one may think about landscape as the environment to encounter when traveling.

Spectacular sights, such as waterfalls or

the panoramic view from the top of a mountain, come to mind immediately,

but everybody also knows about experiencing with all our senses, say,

a forest:

we can inhale its scents, enjoy the playful glittering of sunrays on

a bright day, and listen to its peaceful soundscapes: a bird’s twittering here,

a breeze rustling through the leaves, and maybe a murmuring stream.

Or maybe we think about a secluded garden with fragrant flowers and

a dreamy pond.

No matter whether we encounter the real scenery or see it as an image, and

no matter whether it looks pristine or is clearly manufactured, like the

impressive Singapore supertrees on this image, you would call what you see a landscape.

So the most general definition is:

Landscape comprises all the visible features of an area of land,

often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.

The views of West Lake in Hangzhou, for example,

inspired generations of visitors in premodern China to write and paint.

Yet, scale and

human interaction are not the only defining principles of landscapes;

the famous landscape stones of the Chinese Jiangnan area are an artwork of nature.

Their patterns are appreciated by humans as landscapes,

because their colour and form composition resembles mountains, water,

plants, and other constitutive features.

The concept of landscapes is also applied by geographers and scientists.

They use it for the land's natural forms, including its geological changes,

biological evolution, and cultural transformations.

The latter comprises human inscriptions on natural forms.

The American presidents' heads on Mount Rushmore and

the much older site of Chinese characters carved into the surface of rocks,

as here on Mount Taishan, demonstrate the range of symbolic

meanings that could be attributed to landscape elements.

In the scientific discipline of ecology, a more specialized

definition addresses the function of landscapes for sustaining life.

According to Jianguo Wu, a landscape is a “geographic area in which

variables of interest are spatially heterogenous.

The boundary of a landscape may be delineated based on geographic,

ecological, or administrative units,

for example, a watershed, an urban area, or a county,

which are relevant to the research questions and objectives.”

In other words, landscape ecology studies the interdependencies of wildlife,

vegetation, the geological forms, and climate and ecosystems,

and gleans technologies and values that are suitable for their protection.

In a Chinese novel about Inner Mongolia, “Wolf Totem”,

the readers witness how large patches of grassland are destroyed by the guns and

off-road vehicles of Han immigrants who have come in large numbers to hunt

the wolves and gazelles until they are practically extinct.

The story demonstrates how landscapes can be productively transformed, but

also destroyed by human interference.

A French human geographer, Augustin Berque, identified a rapture in the way

that people interacted with landscapes in Europe before and after the renaissance.

He claims that there is a decline in landscaping beginning from

the moment when external experts started to engineer landscapes.

For this reason, he argues that premodern landscape thinking and planning by economically

dependent dwellers, who naturally aimed at sustainable improvements,

yielded far better results than an estranged landscape theory.

Modern specialists may aim at picturesque views too, but

these are often generated at the expense of a place’s ecological balance.

The southern Swiss village of Soglio is a good example for

the difference that Berque makes between landscape thinking and landscape theory.

Here, the landscape was cultivated in slow movements, and according to the needs and

esthetic preferences of the people living there.

In contrast, modern landscapes like plantations, golf courses, or

leisure parks are planned by specialists who rarely ever have a local bond.

Hence, their economic and

aesthetic principles do not necessarily conform with local ecological concerns.

In this first part of our introduction to landscape theory and the arts,

we have learned that different cultures develop different approaches towards

natural scenery, and also have their own vocabularies to refer to the phenomenon of

historically grown landscapes, and their representation in cultural contexts.

The next lesson will address the stories people tell about landscapes, and

landscapes tell about themselves through

cultural representations.

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