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Sandra Pannellinnovative land tenure framework” (loc. cit.). Val d’Orcia was heralded as a “model ofsustainable rural development” and paintings were commissioned to depict the life of‘ordinary people’ in this landscape (loc. cit.). Val d’Orcia not only represented a prototypeagricultural system, but it was also regarded as the incarnation of Renaissance ideas andaesthetics about ‘landscape beauty’ or bel paesaggio.This ideal landscape was immortalised in Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s 1338-1339 fresco ‘Allegoryof Good Government: the Effects of Good Government in the City and the Country’,extending over three of the walls inside the Town Hall (‘Palazzo Pubblico’) of Siena. AsFrederick Hartt observes, the artist “wanted to bring in the entire territory, off to a distanthorizon, in order to display the agricultural prosperity of the [Siennese] Republic” (1970: 93).In the vista of unfolding fortified hills and farms, peasants are depicted tending vines andharvesting grains. This bucolic country scene contrasts with Lorenzetti’s detailed depiction ofthe city streets, alleys and squares of Sienna, which forms the other focal point in this artisticportrayal of the allegories of ‘good and bad government’. In contrasting the city and thecountryside, Lorenzetti depicts “the hard-won harmony between man and nature whichmakes not only the landscape of Italy but the art […] different from any other in the world”(Hartt 1970: 11). As Hartt points out, Italian art of this period focused upon civic life whichwas “surrounded by a natural world which man is constantly trying to dominate” (ibid: 12). AsHartt concludes, prior to this particular depiction of city and country:No such comprehensive panorama of the natural world and its humaninhabitants is known to us from the entire previous history of art, and certainlynothing so ambitious was ever attempted later, save by the painters of purelyinformative historical decorative panoramas in the sixteenth century (1970: 91).Indeed, the artistic tradition of landscape painting did not fully develop in Europe until the1500s and early 1600s 59 .THE EUROPEAN TRADITION OF LANDSCAPEThe art historian, Walter S. Gibson, identifies “the most important and influential landscapetradition” (1989: xx) as originating in Antwerp in the early 1500s. This tradition is referred toas ‘world landscape’ (Weltlandschaften) and is distinguished by the representation of multipleviewpoints (or put another way, a lack of a one-point perspective), which firmly establishes itsaffiliation with the tradition of cartography. According to Gibson, landscape “could not existas an independent category in art until it had been accepted as such by the public”(1989:xviii). In Europe, prior to 1500, landscape served as a backdrop for human figures and theiractivities. After 1500, it is possible to plot the emergence of autonomous landscapes –landscapes devoid of humans. Although in the case of the landscape traditions associatedwith Antwerp and Venice, human figures still featured, however, their relationship with thesetting was reversed, with the landscape itself dominating the overall effect of the painting.In the European context, there is a strong allegiance and overlap between landscape andmap. Gibson (1989) links the rising popularity of landscapes with European voyaging andexpansionism in the 1500s and concomitant improvements in cartography. Hand in handwith these developments, is a growing public enchantment with maps and globes as both ameans of vicarious travel and, given the pictorial composition of many maps, as forms of walldecoration.59 Claude Lorrain (1604/05-1682) is often described as the ‘first great master of European landscapepainting’.62
Reconciling Nature and Culture in a Global Context?Lessons from the World Heritage ListThe relationship posited between maps and landscapes approximates the Ptolemicconnection between geography, the representation of the ‘whole known world’ (Gibson 1989:52) and chorography, which emphasises limited sections of the world or regions 60 . Thus,regional maps were described as landschaffen or ‘shaped lands’ (Haber 1995: 38) and theirproduction constituted an exercise in chorography. It would seem that prior to the late1400s, there is no single term to describe pictorial representations of natural scenery. Theterm landscape came into use at this time as a way of designating the details, which madeup the background of a painting 61 .The perceived affinity between landscapes and maps is also captured in the word‘landscape’ itself. Gibson informs us that in many European languages, the term signifies “aprovince, a district or, more generally, any extensive area of land” (1989: 53). As Haberpoints out, “the term ‘landscape’ combines ‘land’ with a word of ancient Germanic origin, theverb ‘scapjan’” (1995: 38). In the evolution of Germanic languages, ‘scapjan’ became‘schaffen’ though it still retained its original meaning, ‘to shape’ (Haber 1995: 38). As Haberobserves, this shaping of the land was largely regarded as the outcome of “natural agents orforces” (1995: 38), and thus landscapes were seen as ‘natural vistas’ in their own right orwere presented as a ‘natural’ backdrop to fore-grounded human activities.The concept of landscape we are familiar with today is of landscape as a pictorial subjectmatter rather than as a geographical region. However, the regional connotation of the wordlandscape still persists in terms of the scope or prospect of the subject matter. Although theconcept of landscape has been unhooked for some time from its original art associations(see Bender 1995; Hirsch and O’Hanlon 1995), there is still a dominant view of landscape asan inscribed surface, akin to a map or a text, from which cultural meaning and social formscan simply be read.Susan Kuchler refers to the view of landscape as inscribed or associated surface as the“landscape of memory”, wherein memories (or meanings) are somehow captured in orrepresented by the form of visual landmarks. Kuchler points out that in this view, the idea oflandscape is not “affected by the project of its representation and remembrance” (1995: 104).Kuchler contrasts this view of landscape as the encoding of memory and meaning with thenotion of “landscape as memory” (1995: 85). In this perspective, landscape is implicated inboth the dynamic and interactive social processes of memory-making as well as being one ofthe products of these ongoing processes.The historian Paul Carter is another scholar who takes issue with the idea of space as abackdrop or stage upon which significant events, such as European discovery or anIndigenous ‘Dreamtime’ take place. Similarly, Carter is critical of a view, which presentsphysical surroundings as merely this. As Carter points out in his book ‘The Road to BotanyBay’, what is symbolised is not ‘the physical country’ per se but “the enactment of [analready] historical space” (1987: 349). In other words, references to such things as physicalcountry can only be made by means of the cultural representations of those things. Carterdraws our attention to the importance of realising that a landscape, whether Indigenous orEuropean, signifies more than just another way of representing or symbolising geographicalentities or natural surroundings. Indeed, representation constitutes just one facet of people’s60 The Dutch concept of landschap originally referred to a small area of land, which was viewed as aninset of a much larger region or context. The concept of chorography emerged as a way ofrepresenting and talking about this form of confined perspective. In this respect, landschapcoincides with the German meaning of the word Landschaft (see Bender 1995: 2).61 Gibson (1989: 53) records that it was common practice in contracts between artists and theirpatrons for a detailed inventory to be drawn up which referred to all of the elements, which would beincorporated into the final painting.63
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RECONCILING NATURE AND CULTUREIN A
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Sandra PannellCOLOUR PLATESLIST OF
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