Landscape

A definition of the landscape largely divided today is that contained in the European Convention of the landscape , signed under the auspices of the the Council of Europe in 2000. According to this definition The landscape defines part of territory as perceived by the populations, whose character results from the action of natural and/or human factors and their interrelationships . The landscape is the subject of interpretations, increasingly interdisciplinary; history and theory of the landscape and the territory, sciences and technology of alive, sociology, Letters and visual arts, technical of the representation, image, social sciences.

An object difficult to apprehend

the concept of landscape evolves/moves Before the 19th century, the authors refer only seldom to the landscape. Then it is clearly included/understood in the field where the glance carries, then little by little of the air images, even of the satellite photos are comparable with landscapes.

the concept of landscape oscillates between two poles:

- Landscape considered as the resultant of the joint action of the Man and the alive world (animal, vegetable, fungic, etc). It is this design which prevails in ecology of the landscape, ecology studying in time and space (biogeographic units) the dynamics and the fitting of the spots of the landscape on intermediate scales between the planet gear (biosphere) and the room. , communications, barriers, fragmentations. - The landscape was also defined as the visual perception which one has of his environment as far as the eye can see, except for the points of interests close to the observer. One also referred to the landscape to indicate his representation in a work. Concepts of inheritance, esthetics and amenities then giving a value to this landscape, variable according to the times and considered to be more or less subjective and relative according to the actors.

The geographer Paul Vidal of Blache, founder of the school of Annals, largely contributed to forge the geographical approach of the landscapes in second half of the 19th century. The landscape is then conceived in an objective and genealogical aiming: it is the result of the actions of the Men adapting to their natural environment during the history. It becomes a vast work where the geographer can distinguish the natural elements from the cultural elements, and their close friend mixes in many areas, following one another during time. This approach a long time dominated the French geographical thought of the landscape. But it evacuated the question of subjectivity, and that of the esthetic approach of the landscape, i.e. that of the world of Arts.

Between these two poles, the geographers hesitated a long time and have an abandoned time the landscape term, considered as too vague. In the years 1970-1980, they réappropriés this concept, under the crook of Georges Bertrand, by regarding the landscape as a hybrid object, calling at the same time with the natural science (Géomorphologie, vegetable ecology, Climatologie) and upon social sciences (territorialisation of space, perception, phenomenology, symbols political…). Georges Bertrand thus created a ternary concept of study: Géosystème - Territory - landscape, allowing to study dynamic landscape and its evolution. (It goes without saying the evolution of a landscape depends at the same time on the natural processes and human installations, dependant on perceptions and the ideologies). In its article " Landscape and physical geography globale" ( Re-examined geography of the Pyrenees and South-west , 1968) G. Bertrand, while referring to the landscape affirms: " It is, on a certain portion of space, the result of the dynamic combination, therefore unstable, physical, biological and anthropic elements which, by dialectically reacting the ones on the others, make landscape a single and indissociable whole into perpetual évolution" . Even if in this definition of landscape one can find some contact points compared to the definition given by the European Convention of the landscape (see higher), it remains however incomplete because it does not take into account the subjective dimension which forms the landscape just like objective dimension.

Since a score of years, the study of the landscapes by the social sciences is particularly sharp in France, through the works of historians like Alain Corbin or geographers like Jean-Robert Pitte. This last is placed in a posture breaking with the principles of Vidal of Blache. He insists largely on the place of the subjectivity and the evolution of perceptions, through our lifestyles (car, plane, train) that the artists come to reveal thanks to their works. Alain Corbin widens as the question of landscape perception by not confining it as with visual but with all the directions. He thus spoke about “sound landscape” in his work on the bells in the French campaigns. The distinction between an approach naturalist of the landscape and an approach culturalist was expressed most strongly by the philosopher Alain Roger in his famous test Paysage and environment: for a theory of dissociation (1996, “Landscape and environment: for a theory of dissociation”, in Dantec Jean-Pierre, Gardens and landscapes , ED. Larousse) which calls some with completely distinguishing the two concepts.

The concept of landscape takes another dimension when the Atlantic is crossed. The landscape American, and particularly that of the Great West, broke with many European guns. The discovery of Western big spaces of the the United States (the conquest of the West), at the time of second half of the 19th century upset completely its discoverers, worthy successors of Humboldt. They were vis-a-vis wild spaces, compared to Europe quasi-entièrement anthropized, and scales without common measurement with those of the Old world. Moreover it was the occasion with a new artistic medium to provide its vision of the landscape: photography, whereas until now it was the painting which had had the load of this representation. The photographs of Ansel Adams in the solid mass of the Yosemite Valley are exemplary. It is on this occasion that the American concept of wilderness was forged, difficult to translate (sauvageté, wild world, Naturalité?), to qualify these virgin big spaces.

In a broader field, the term of landscape is used to describe a contextual unit, such as for example the “political scene”. This use of the term “landscape” illustrates well the importance of temporality in the landscape: It is about a vision of the things at a given time, the landscape being continuously moving.

Chart

Starting from the initial definition of extended from ground which is offered to the sight, the French language built several close concepts of which that of representation of a landscape by the Peinture, the Dessin, the Photographie, etc The representation of the landscape has a big role in graphic arts because she is opposed sometimes to the representation of the beings, or can be also used to symbolize them (religious Peinture for example).

Condensed history

In Greek and Roman antiquity, the landscape is painted only like bottom or environment to put in context a principal scene. During all the the Christian Middle Ages and the Rebirth, the landscape is conceived only like works divine and its representation refers to its creator.

With the Rebirth, the landscape is used to express the urban Utopie S and emergent policies. Initially “perceived” through the framework of the windows in the tables representing of the interior scenes, it will take an increasingly important place, until occupying all the surface of the fabric). In parallel, the characters of the religious scenes in outside “will narrow” until being more symbolized almost only by the elements of the landscape (e.g.: the Christ by a mountain).

The landscape takes however truly its rise only at the 17th century, with the development of the Collectionnisme. In Flandres, the first representation of independent landscape is that of Joachim Patinir. One then distinguishes three types of landscapes:

  • traditional landscape , where is represented an ideal nature, imposing, overcome by the Man. The representation credible, but is then not recomposed to sublimate nature and to make it perfect; in general, a history hides in this type of landscapes, whose commonplaces are the presence of elements of Roman architecture, combined with a mountain or a hill and a water level. The three centers important of this type of representations are Rome, with Annibale Carracci, the creator of this type, and its following Albane, Dominiquin, Poussin…, but also Paris and the Holland.
  • the landscape naturalist proposes a more humanistic vision, harmony between the Man and nature. In general, this one imposing, abundant and wild, is represented at the time of storms, storms. If this vision is more credible, it is not necessary that a precise place is represented. One rather finds the representatives of this type in the schools of north, with Rembrandt, Salvator Rosa and Rubens.
  • topographic landscape , which represents necessarily a precise and identifiable place, with a nature presented in a humbler way. This kind is rather characteristic of the Dutch school, where the painters are extremely specialized (there exist painters of forests, channels, cities…)

At the time romantic, the landscape becomes actor or producer of emotions and subjective experiments. The Picturesque and the Sublime then seem two modes of vision of the landscapes. The tourist first Guides take again these points of view to manufacture a popular glance on the sites and the landscapes.

The Impressionism and the school of Barbizon will give then a role very different to the landscape by being some the object from an observation meticulous person and relative in terms of Lumière and Couleur S, in the objective to create a representation faithful to the lived perception which an observer can have. This fidelity, which is expressed for example in the Contraste S and the keys in a “vibrating” way, is undoubtedly one of the sources of passion for impressionism (one often speaks about impressionist miracle for the precision about returned artists like Claude Monet).

The Abstraction in its various forms will withdraw then most of its importance to the landscape by limiting the range of realism and the representation.

Structure

The management of the Natural or the Garden S.A. given place to a form of specialization of the architecture which takes into account the characteristics of the development, the construction or the modification of the landscapes or portions of landscapes.

One speaks then about the activities of Paysagiste S, engineers landscape designers or of architect-landscape designers, according to the contexts.

Landscape and tallies of life

The current concept of landscape is altogether rather recent. Before being the object of artistic representations or architectural studies, the landscape was a country with the original direction of the term, i.e. a portion of the national territory with a well marked identity, a place of life and work for the local inhabitants who belong to this country. This concept returned to the mode at the 20th century, so that one speaks about Terroir, of the department of Var Pays or Pays of Bray, and landscape in general to indicate this natural framework accommodating the human activities.

The natural landscape makes from now on the object of a scientific discipline with whole share, the ecology of the landscape, and is regarded as a common inheritance to preserve.

In Town and country planning, the taking into account of the landscape aspects of any project of installation (restoration, agricultural regrouping, highways, etc) is from now on almost obligatory. Indeed the Local plan of town planning of the communes must from now on take it into account, and of the laws like that of January 8th, 1993 (known as " law Paysage") the protection of the landscape as tel. Ainsi the majority of the projects of installation allow, like the plane of management of natural spaces, comprise a landscape Analyze as a preliminary medium.

Pursuant to the principles of the European Convention of the landscape, the European countries are held to inventory their landscapes in a preoccupation of installation, management or a safeguarding. In France, this inventory is carried out in the form of Atlas of landscapes, on a departmental or regional scale.

Public policies of the landscape

The administration of the landscape is still recent. The first law referring date of 1906 to it and the stabilization of the service which in with the load took place in 1995 with the creation of the subdirectorate of the sites and landscapes within the direction of nature and the landscapes to the Ministère of ecology and sustainable development. Emmanuelle Heaulmé (School of architecture and landscape, Bordeaux) distinguishes three great models from perception and action which, during the 20th century, ordered the patrimonialisation of the landscapes:

- the “paradigm of the Picturesque ”: the landscape is essential like patrimonial object insofar as it lends itself to a bringing together with a painted work (laws 1906 and 1930 on the sites and natural monuments)

- the “paradigm of the environment” as from the years 1950: inscription and classification, in the years 1960 and 1970, of great natural landscapes (e.g. Landes and the Gironde), and appearance of a new policy which sticks, beyond simple protection, to implement a true management of the Site S.

- the “paradigm of the cultural landscape” since the years 1980: attention paid to the landscape as a significant form of a dynamic interaction of the naturalness and the social one.

Protection of the exceptional landscapes

The State thus obtained important lawful capacities little by little, in particular in favor of exceptional the landscapes known as patrimonial . The law of 1930 relating to the protection of the natural monuments and the sites of nature artistic, historical, scientific, legendary or picturesque allows the classification of the most exceptional landscapes under the sites. The classification offers a reinforced protection compared to inscription, while prohibiting, without the authorization special of the qualified minister, the realization of all work tending to modify the aspect of the site. In addition, the Directives of protection and development of the landscapes aim at ensuring in a selective way safeguarding and the development of the principal structuring elements of a landscape. There also exists of other instruments of protection for the safeguard of exceptional natural spaces like the national natural reserves, the National parks, the biological reserves, etc Finally one can quote the appearance of specific rules in certain fragile and/or coveted spaces, like the Loi mountain and the Loi littoral, or the creation of a sanctuary for the marine mammals in the Mediterranean (“Sanctuaire Pelagos”, agreement makes in Rome on November 25th, 1999).

Towards a policy of the landscapes of the daily newspaper

In France, in 1971 was created a ministry in charge of protection of nature and environment, and since 1995, the minister in charge for the environment and sustainable development is, within the government, person in charge of the policy of the landscapes, tallied in particular by the Loi landscapes.

It should finally be recalled that the majority of the instruments of protection landscapes concern the local government agencies. The town councilors play a central role because they are made the spokesperson of waitings of their managed and they justify the local relevance of the landscape problems with a social argumentation.

One thus notes the progressive installation of a true policy of the landscapes, which aims “to preserve the diversity of the French landscapes durably”.

Schools of architecture and landscape

in France

in Switzerland

  • School of engineers de Lullier with Geneva
  • Institute of architecture of the university of Geneva

See too

Artistic topics

  • naked the
  • still life
  • the allegory
  • the self-portrait
  • the portrait
  • the pietà

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