Simon Shama, Landscape and Memory

In his book, Landscape and Memory (1995) Simon Sharma argues that it is difficult to think of a natural landscape,

“that has not, for better or worse, been modified by human culture. Nor is this simply the work of the industrial centuries…….. it is this irreversible modified world, from the polar caps to the equatorial forests, that is the nature we have.”

 

(Sharma, 1995, pp. 6-7)

He captures the image of his argument with Magritte’s painting, La Condition humaine, below. What we see is a painting superimposed over the view it depicts, so that the two are indistinguishable.

 

René Magritte, La Condition humaine, 1933, oil on canvas, National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Sharma expands on this perceived illusion,

“and it is culture, convention, and cognition that makes that design; that invests a retinal impression with the quality we experience as beauty.”

 

(Sharma, 1995, p. 12)

Sharma illustrates his argument with the Yosemite Valley, USA, a place of sacred significance for the USA, and the example of Albert Bierstadt’s painting, The Yosemite Valley, 1868 (below). The area had already been occupied and cleared by the expelled Ahwahneechee Indians and penetrated by mining companies before it was preserved as a park and “wilderness”.

 

Albert Bierstadt, the Yosemite Valley, 1868, oil on canvas, Oakland Museum of California

However, Sharma argues,

“There is nothing inherently shameful about that occupation. Even the landscapes that we suppose to be most free of our culture may turn out on closer inspection, to be its product.”

 

(Sharma, 1995, p. 9)

Sharma’s book explores not what we have lost, but what we may yet find. It is an alternative way of looking, an invitation for reflection and contribution to self-knowledge. My practice will be informed by these arguments, about how human activity affects the landscape, and how the ideas and work of the artists I have selected relate to my work.