Differing Conceptions of Land, Place, and Space

Differing Conceptions of Land, Place, and Space

Karen Kramer

 

Landscape art is a compelling lens through which to view varying conceptions of and connections to land and place. Through the eyes of several centuries of artists, we can consider complex interconnections between the human and nonhuman, and land, place, and space. For millennia, artists have depicted, reflected, and shaped visions of home, topographies, and the natural environment. Sometimes when these artists  share their visual representations of the natural world, they are also expressing their political views, even when unconscious. 

Bierstadt, for example, in the nineteenth century, along with many other landscape painters of his time, portrayed American scenery as pristine -- untouched -- and often devoid of people (see his landscape painting Rocky Mountains, Lander’s Peak, 1863 below). This was emblematic of the dominant mindset who viewed nature as magnificent and awe-inspiring, and land as untapped and available for use as natural resources or as property to be owned.  These romantic visions relied on the dispossession of Indigenous people, who were removed from this land to reservations, to make way for National Parks and other federal government projects.

Ansel Adams is perhaps the most celebrated American photographer of the twentieth century, beloved for his black-and-white pictures that celebrate the sublime in nature. His landscape photographs were remarkable for their stunning clarity and depth of field. He was an ardent environmentalist, and started the Sierra Club to preserve wilderness. He preferred to make pictures without people in them -- which has led many people to think of themselves as separate from ecology / nature. 

Some communities and cultures understand land and place as far more than a geographic point on a map, and far more than property that can be owned individually. Many Indigenous people around the globe understand themselves to be inextricably bound to land through identity, language, and kin. For them, land is an animate being. For example, Ambelin Kwaymullina (Palyku community, Australian Aboriginal) explains:

"For Aboriginal peoples, country is much more than a place. Rock, tree, river, hill, animal, human – all were formed of the same substance by the Ancestors who continue to live in land, water, sky. Country is filled with relations speaking language and following Law, no matter whether the shape of that relation is human, rock, crow, wattle. Country is loved, needed, and cared for, and country loves, needs, and cares for her peoples in turn. Country is family, culture, identity. Country is self." 

Yakari Napaltjarri’s etching (see below) depicts designs associated with the rockhole site of Ngaminya, just south of the Kiwirrkura community in Western Australia. The parallel lines evoke the rows of tali (sandhills) in the area around Ngaminya, a ceremonial place women stopped en route to the next ceremonial place in the east. Many generations ago, in ancestral times, women camped here collecting kampurarrpa (edible raisins). There is a rocky outcrop at this place formed from huge mounds of these raisins. 

Chinese landscape painters from the Ming dynasty helped express the ruling house’s vision for cultural restoration and expansion. The Ming court dictated styles to painters, and commissioned them to return to realistic representation, in earlier styles. Landscapes were favored, because they were large compositions that could convey the new dynasty’s benevolence, virtue, and majesty. There were schools of painting, who held strict conventions to brushwork, composition, and color.

 

Albert Bierstadt (German-born American, 1830-1902)

Rocky Mountains, "Lander's Peak," 1863

Oil on linen

Painting: 43 5/8 x 35 1/2 inches

Framed: 57 5/8 x 49 3/4 x 4 1/4 inches)

Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Bequest of Mrs. William Hayes Fogg, 1895 [HAM Cat. No. 1895.698]

Description from website: This painting is based on sketches and photographs that Bierstadt compiled in the summer of 1859, when he joined a government survey expedition led by Frederic W. Lander. But the work is an imagined view rather than an accurate topographical rendering. Painted and exhibited in Bierstadt’s New York studio, it is geared to the sensibility of urban East Coast viewers. With its dramatic sunlit mountain range and verdant, uncultivated valley, the painting portrays the American West as an edenic landscape filled with hope and opportunity. It signals the promise of new beginnings, a resonant theme for a nation torn apart by civil war.

Bierstadt, one of the first American painters to explore the West, journeyed as far as the Wind River Mountains of Wyoming. Though he encountered and sketched many Native Americans on his travels, this work does not include any signs of the indigenous population.

Ansel Adams (1902 - 1984)

Mudhills, Arizona, 1947 (printed 1970)

Gelatin silver print

14 3/4 x 19 3/8 inches

Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Gift of the Polaroid Foundation, 1971 [HAM Cat. No. P1971.2]

© The Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust

Ngaminya, 2010 from the suite “Tjukurrpa Palurukutu, Kutjupawana Palyantjanya - same stories, a new way” 

Yakari Napaltjarri (Australian Aboriginal, born ca. 1945)

Printed by Dian Darmansjah

Etching on Hahnemühle rag paper (edition 10/40)

Image dimensions: 13 x 9 13/16 inches

Sheet dimensions: 21 5/8 x 17 11/16 inches

Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Richard Norton Memorial Fund, 2013 [HAM Cat. No. 2013.46.19]

© Papunya Tula Artists

 

Yue Dai [Yüeh Tai], Chinese (active mid 16th century)

Snowy Landscape, 1571 (during Ming dynasty, 1368-1644)

China, East Asia

Hanging scroll mounted as a panel and framed; ink and light color on paper

52 1/2 x 13 1/4 inches

Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Edward B. Bruce Collection of Chinese Paintings; Gift of Galen L. Stone, 1923 [HAM Cat. No. 1923.183]