The Iconography of Landscape: Essays On The Symbolic Representation, Design And Use Of Past Environments: 9 (Cambridge Studies in Historical Geography, Series Number 9) - Softcover

'Coherently set core essays best serve the book's central theme, and are likewise the most satisfying scholarly endeavours. The social and political implications of changing landscape imagery emerge in fascinating detail in John Lucas' examination of Wordsworth's and Clare's ambivalence toward the picturesque; in Hugh Prince's reflections on the nostalgic timelessness of rural scenes from Gainsborough and Richard Wilson to Constable and Turner; and, above all, in Daniels' polished chapter on the political iconography of woodland ... Spirited and attentive editing and virtually impeccable bookmaking make this volume a pleasure to read.' David Lowenthal, History Today

The Iconography of Landscape, first published in 1988, draws together fourteen scholars from diverse disciplines across the humanities and social sciences to explicate the status of landscape as a cultural image, 'a pictorial way of representing, structuring or symbolising surroundings'. By applying the art-historical method of iconography - interpreting levels of meaning in human artifacts - to landscapes on paper or canvas, in literary form or on its ground, its contributors show how landscape is an important mode of human signification, informed by, and itself informing, social, cultural and political issues. The range of examples is wide in terms of medium, period and place. It covers poetry and promotional literature, architectural design and urban ceremonial, maps and paintings. The historical periods discussed include sixteenth-century Italy, eighteenth-century England, eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Scotland and twentieth-century Canada. The book is introduced by the editors' discussion of the meanings of landscape and of the iconographic method in the context of contemporary theoretical and methodological debates on culture and society.