Political landscape
Subtitle: the art history of nature
By: Martin Warnke
Series: Essays in art and culture (London, England)
Publisher: Reaktion
Published: 1994
Place of publication: London
Language: eng
Translated from: ger
Number of pages: 165
Subjects: Nature (Aesthetics); Political aspects; Landscapes in art; Art; Themes, motives
Work titles: Politische Landschaft
Description: If a river runs through it, somewhere there is bound to be a bridge. Little in the landscape remains untouched by human hands, and every touch, from the simplest ditch to the most intricate monument, reveals a political decision or design. This is how Martin Warnke, one of Germany's leading art historians, looks at landscape in this book, which leads to a new way of seeing nature as we have appropriated, represented, and transformed it over time. Covering nearly a thousand years and most of western Europe, Political Landscape provides a compelling summary history of modern humanity's ill-fated attempt to master nature.

Warnke finds evidence of the politicized landscape everywhere, on nature's own ground and in art, artifacts, and architecture, in features defined by the demands of conquest and defense, property rights and picturesque improvement, trade, tradition, communication, and commemoration. Whether considering the role of landscape in battle depictions; or investigating monumental figures from the Colossus of Rhodes to Mount Rushmore; or asking why gold backgrounds in paintings gave way to mountains topped with castles; Political Landscape reconfigures our idea of landscape, its significance, and its representations. The book sharpens our perceptions of nature in art and as art - a nature charged with symbol and meaning as a result of interventions by turns enlightened, insensitive, or, as now, dangerously corrosive.
Notes: Translation of: Politische Landschaft.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 147-158).
Table of contents: title: 1. The Occupation of the Plain; title: 2. Hills and Castles; title: 3. From Battlefield to War Landscape; title: 4. Nature's Freedom as Political Freedom; title: 5. Natural Forces and Natural Forms; title: 6. Political Nature Imagery.