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.