From: Shannon Stoney (shannonstoney@earthlink.net)
Date: 12/21/02-12:09:20 AM Z
>> One of my goals is to expand the notion of landscape to include tighter
>> spaces such as exist in the southeast, and probably on the east coast. I
>> think our view of landscape is too dominated by the Western way of
>> landscape, probably because the first really great landscape
>> photographers of the 19th century photographed out there, and because
> landscape painting has usually leaned toward big views of wide and deep
> space. But the landscape I actually live in is more like a path that
> opens onto little scenes or still lifes.
>>
Jon wrote:
>
> Do you realy feel that 'landscape' was defined by the photographers of the
> west?
I meant landscape photography. In that case, yes.
>
> Have you looked much into the "Hudson River School Of Landscape Painting"?
Yes, I wrote two long papers about American landscape painting and
photography. If you'd like to see my whole bibliography, I could send that
to you in January when I'm back in Houston. But probably the most helpful
book I read was Barbara Novak's Nature and Culture, but there was another
book on American Luminism that was almost as good.
>
> There is a big mistake being made when discussing this topic and not
> considering art and art history in defining landscape.
>
> And we wonder why the art world looks down so much on photography.
I agree that photographers need to pay attention to the whole history of
art, and not just the history of photography. My study of landscape showed
me that photographers, in the 19th century anyway, paid a lot of attention
to landscape painting and adopted some of its conventions.
But, what does this have to do with what I was saying above about my own
landscape? I've seen very little American landscape painting or photography
that deals with MY landscape. Some of the French Impressionist paintings
treat the same subject matter: little views of rural land, gardens and
fields and barns and such, in a sort of intimate, up close way. But most
American landscape painting and photography that I've looked at takes the
grand, sweeping view, even or especially the Hudson River School. Of course
you sometimes see little paintings by Americans of a corner of a wood. I
love these little studies. Most of them seem to have been executed as
preliminary studies, though, not meant as finished works.
I did see some Eliot Porter stuff at the Amon Carter museum that was more up
close and personal. The same show had some color photography by a
contemporary of his, a woman, whose name I've forgotten; it too was closeup,
tight landscapes, almost still lifes really, of flowers and rocks and
mushrooms and such. (Even Ansel did some of these.)
As for the southern landscape, there is a book called A Place Not Forgotten,
from an exhibit of Southern painting and photography. Various southern
writers and artists (including Sally Mann) comment on the fact that the
southeastern landscape has been relatively neglected. So I'm not the only
one who's noticed that.
--shannon
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