"The Harvesters", by Pieter Brueghel the Elder, 1565: Peace and agriculture in a pre-Romantic ideal landscape, without sublime terrors

The word landscape as most westerners use it is completely entrenched in western notions of land, nature and art. It is generally only conceived of in terms of an emerging post-Renaissance dichotomy of nature vs. culture or pristine vs. mundane and contaminated. Alternatively, the genesis of the western concept of landscape is tied to the discovery of linear perspective and map-making. It is not true, however, that understandings of landscape, even within western culture, are necessarily formed around concepts of untouched nature or which locate the observer (as in the trope of the painted landscape) outside of the picture, the landscape itself. For many people, the dense mesh of city buildings is their landscape and their art may reflect this. For others, human intervention in the natural world may be seen as the ideal environment and "visual pleasure" may be brought about by views of cleared tracts of land juxtaposed with threatening wilderness. The actual word "Landscape" is derived from the Dutch, "Landschap" or German "'Landschaft' meaning a sheaf, a patch of cultivated ground, something small-scale that corresponded to a peasant's perception, a mere fragment of a feudal estate, an inset in a Breugel landscape. This usage had gone out of vogue by the eleventh century, replaced by words that corresponded to the larger political spaces of those with power - territoire, pays, domain. And then in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries it re-emerged, tightly tied to a particular 'way of seeing', a particular experience, whether in pictures, extolling nature or landscaping an estate" (B. Bender in Landscape: Politics and Perspectives 1995:2). Through tracing the history of the term we come to see that even within the realm of art, it is tied to politics and power of conceptual organization, ownership and perspective. That landscape painting as form of representation was established in 15th century Italy and Flanders was due to new politics of vision. In fact, landscape, be it used to describe a genre of painting or the world we locate ourselves within, is never empty, never just a 'vista'. And, equally as significantly, never only experienced visually. The Harvesters by Pieter Brueghel the Elder. ... The Harvesters by Pieter Brueghel the Elder. ... Bruegels The Painter and The Connoisseur drawn c. ... A landform comprises a geomorphological unit. ... The Nature Conservancy - a charitable organization devoted to preserving natural diversity worldwide English Nature UK government organization devoted to preserving natural diversity in the UK Nature Detectives An online research and education project for under 18s in the UK A Guide to Nature and Wildlife Conservation Categories: | ... Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Art Resources DEFINE.name Glossary Index ArtLex. ... By region Italian Renaissance Spanish Renaissance Northern Renaissance French Renaissance German Renaissance English Renaissance The Renaissance, also known as Il Rinascimento (in Italian), was an influential cultural movement which brought about a period of scientific revolution and artistic transformation, at the dawn of modern European history. ... Perspective is the choice of a single point of view from which to sense, categorize, measure or codify experience, typically for comparing with another. ... // Linguistic usage A trope is a rhetorical figure of speech that consists of a play on words, i. ... Montreal skyline at night For alternate meanings see city (disambiguation) A city is an urban area that is differentiated from a town, village, or hamlet by size, population density, importance, or legal status. ... Building is either the act of creating an object assembled from more than one element, or the object itself; see also construction. ... Bob Marshall Wilderness, Montana, United States Wilderness is land that has not been significantly modified by direct or indirect human activity. ... Brueghel or Bruegel was the name of several Flemish painters from the same family line: Pieter Brueghel the Elder (c. ...

When the term landscape refers to a static painting, weather and sky conditions are also important elements.

Related Illustration

Cloudscapes or skyscapes are depictions of clouds, weatherforms, and atmospheric conditions in the same manner as landscapes.

Seascapes depict oceans or beaches in the same manner as landscapes.

Cityscapes or Townscapes depict cities (urban landscapes) in the same manner as landscapes.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Landscape paintings

• Official Landscape Gallery of Kiril Stanchev
• Contemporary Landscapes by Dutch painter Frans Koppelaar