Text 3 - Claire Ohmovere

Question 1

Definition of Landscape

Answer 1

Landscape can both designate the artistic representation of the physical environment and its perception. In both cases, we’re talking about visual perception and visual representation : a painting or a scenery.
In the term Landscape was introduced in the English Language first as designating paintings. The word landscape is always associated with the esthetic values

In order to go from Land to Landscape there is always the conjunction of “what is seen” with “a way of seeing it
The frame of the photograph allows us to see a composition (foreground, background), contrast (colour contrast)

Question 2

Burtynsky

Answer 2

Burtynsky → Canadian photographer.
Draws on the convention of the sublime.

Question 3

Critique VS criticism

Answer 3

Critique not necessarily negative

Question 4

topophilia

Answer 4

The love of a place : topophilia. The forging of the effective bond between place and setting.
⇒ Linked to environmental perception & environmental values
Ex : Industrial people do not value the landscape. Industrial ruins are not sth that at St Etienne we tend to see as beautiful and if we do there is the mediation of art.

Question 5

1st paragraph

Answer 5

What can we deduce from understanding in relation with animals and society. In Human society

• Authority : relation btw the new-comers and the prevailing authority. AUthority of the territory that has been occupied.
• Relationship between the new-comers and the site they colonise ⇒ landscape. Necessity to relate to the place you occupy ⇒ this changes if you’re descendant of a colonist or an indigenous.

Question 6

Landscape def

Answer 6

Landscape = conjunction of a site and a way of perceiving the site.

Question 7

Landscaping

Answer 7

Landscaping : Land as landscape and the actual transformation of the physical environment is a process through which territorial power colonizes –
Claims authority over indigenous space
⇒ Landscaping is part of the colonial power.
We’ve seen it with Richardson and Urquet’s text.

Question 8

Last 2 paragraphs

Answer 8

⇒ The way Europeans thought of landscape does not necessarily fit with their experience of the Canadian environment. Usually we think about lakes, mountains etc BUT some places are flat for example. ⇒ Natural environment is hard to turn into a landscape.
What does this disconnect do to the canon ?
It shows the canon as not being evident.
⇒ New ways of perceiving describing the natural environment.

Landscape is a western concept as it’s wilderness. For the indigenous people in Canada the sites that have been represented as wilderness are not.

Question 9

How does the wilderness become landscape ?

Answer 9

This can be seen in colonial literature in18-19th in Canada.
It became a colonial nature myth.

The wilderness as landscape is seen in this text. She is responding to the myth of the wilderness and to this transformation of nature into landscape