Landscape: Pattern, Perception and Process by Simon Bell, E. &F. N. Spon,
拢45, ISBN 0419203400
IT鈥檚 all over the world, everywhere and nowhere, but there wasn鈥檛 even a word
for it in English鈥攏ot, that is, until the painters painted it. In fact,
the word 鈥渓andscape鈥� does not appear until the late 16th century, derived from
the older Dutch landskip or lantscap, terms which generally
referred to the landscape background to works of art with an entirely different
main subject.
But little by little, the background crept forward: by the 17th century,
landskips were portrayed for their own sakes. The trend continued, spurred
on by the Gothic fascination with 鈥渉orrid鈥� landscapes, fictional haunts of
tortured evil-doers and heroic struggles. The Romantics kept the awe but lost
much of the terror, visiting and admiring the wildest of landscapes.
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With a little help from William Wordsworth, we were encouraged to view the
land in this new and inspiring light. Victorian John Ruskin promoted a more
utilitarian view: access to land was necessary for city dwellers, the displaced
victims of industrialisation who had lost their ancestral ties to the soil.
Ruskin鈥檚 view has endured. Certainly, the further removed we become from the
land, the more important landscape becomes for us. Naturally, those who still
depend on the land for their livelihood have a strong feeling for it, but it
differs markedly from those who just gawp at the landscape, pausing to take a
picture from a vantage point in a national park before returning to the
city.
All these responses show how much a landscape resembles a Rorschach ink-blot
test. It鈥檚 capable of being seen, interpreted and valued in countless ways,
shaped by what the viewer wants or hopes to get from it.
This leaves those studying landscape with a problem. To get to grips with
landscapes requires knowledge and expertise from a lot of . . . well,
fields.
In Landscape: Pattern, Perception and Process, Simon Bell makes a
brave attempt to span the territory, ranging from geology to
psychology鈥攁lthough the emphasis is on geography. But his method is that
of the coach tour guide as he criss-crosses the territory, stopping off at the
physiology of the eye, pausing at the psychology of perception.
What can we hope to learn from such brief notes? These multidisciplinary
snippets do combine to yield a fascinating and useful collection, but his dash
across so many topics makes a reader long for the hand of a tough editor, a
final effort to knit this interesting collection of pieces into a seamless
whole. It remains a little like a textbook, albeit a good one.
Bell is a landscape architect, so he is bound to put forward his strong views
about what landscape should contain in the way of buildings. Avoid 鈥渂ungalow
blight鈥�, he advises, stick to the local traditional housing in the countryside.
He鈥檚 fair enough to concede that some people rate a bungalow as bliss, not
blight鈥攚ith good reason as they make an escape from crowded cities.
What remains in the mind is Bell鈥檚 emphasis on human鈥檚 impact on the
landscape, which has, of course, increased exponentially over the millennium. As
for the landscape鈥檚 impact on the human, Bell shows just how useful and
necessary the landskip has become as a dumping ground for our emotions
and a rich source of inspiration. Long may it last.