Landscape and Western Art

by Malcolm Andrews

Overview

What is landscape? How does it differ from "land?" Does landscape always imply something to be pictured, a scene? When and why did we begin to cherish images of nature? What is "nature?" Is it everything that isn't art, or artifact? By addressing these and many other questions, Landscape and Western Art explores the myriad ideas and images of the natural world in Western art since the Renaissance.

Implying that land is the raw material, and that art is created by turning land into landscape, which then becomes art, author Malcolm Andrews takes the reader on a thematic tour of the fascinating and challenging issues of landscape as art. The books broad sweep covers the full, rich spectrum of landscape art, including painting, gardening, panorama, poetry, photography, and art. Artistic issues are investigated in connection with Western cultural movements, and within a full international and historical context.

Clear explanations and beautiful illustrations convey to the reader the idea of landscape as an experience in which everyone is creatively involved. Landscape and Western Art provides an enlightening and comprehensive critical overview of landscape art.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780192842336
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	02/03/2000
Series:	Oxford History of Art
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	9.20(w) x 6.50(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Malcolm Andrews is Professor of Victorian and Visual Studies at the University of Kent. He is the author of Dickens on England and the English, The Search for the Picturesque, and Dickens and the Grown-up Child. He has edited a three-volume anthology, The Picturesque: Sources and Documents and is currently editor of the journal The Dickensian.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
Chapter 1: Land into Landscape
Chapter 2: Subject or Setting? Landscape and Renaissance Painting
Chapter 3: Landscape as Amenity
Chapter 4: Topography and the Beau Ideal
Chapter 5: Framing the View
Chapter 6: 'Astonished beyond Expression:' Landscape, the Sublime, and the Unpresentable
Chapter 7: Landscape and Politics
Chapter 8: Nature as Picture or Process?
Chapter 9: Landscape into Land: Earth Works, Art, and Environment
Notes
List of Illustrations
Bibliographic Essay
Index

Editorial Reviews

"A splendid text ... with images both celebrated and startling, he shows landscape as a contruction, a theatre in which humans act and enjoy seeing themselves act."—Professor Richard Thomson, Edinburgh University

"A very accomplished surveyof a notoriously complex and elusive subject ... nothing—not even words like 'environment' and 'art' is left unquestioned."—Andrew Wilton, Keeper and Senior Research Fellow, Tate Gallery

From the Publisher