Custom Search
Attitudes To Landscape Are Plotted And Pieced.
Although an era of global communication now overwhelms the world there are still distinctive cultures, particularly between the hemispheres. A word like 'landscape' has interesting cultural ramifications, particularly in what some may come to call the 'environmental age'.
In Oman attention is paid to environmental issues and lovely city gardens are attended by groups of gardeners. However, when a mechanical digger appeared on top of the beautiful White Mountain that lies behind the city no-one raised an eyebrow. The machine began to scar the face of the mountain permanently as it excavated a wide trench for a motor way running across the face of the mountain. In another culture this would have sparked outrage but not in Oman. This illustrates how attitudes to landscapes differ from one culture to another.
In those few remaining parts of the globe where nature is still overpowering in the minds of human beings attitudes to nature are quite different from those where nature has long since been dominated, as in England. In his nineteenth century poem, 'Pied Beauty' G. M. Hopkins extolled the virtue of diversity melding it with his religious emotions so that words like 'wilderness' and landscape plotted and pieced' acquired an almost religious intensity. People who know English literature understand this, but people with different cultural values have different sensibilities.
It is quite widely accepted that beauty resides in the eye of the beholder, and such is the case when it comes to scenery. Some people will view a pipe line running across pristine snow with great satisfaction since it symbolizes economic advancement for them.
People with distinctive cultural affinities are either sensitive to distant perspectives or indifferent to them. People who use English and understand something of its literature may have difficulty in understanding people of other cultures who are unmoved and indifferent when viewing the same scenery.
Online searches for the word 'landscape' will yield about half a million potential results. This illustrates the contemporary currency of the word in our global community. Even in remote African environments some politicians are following cues from countries like China and attempting to revitalize the environment by planting trees. However, most people now live in cities and it is in city contexts that they will respond most significantly to a built environment. Read more about: Landscape
In Oman attention is paid to environmental issues and lovely city gardens are attended by groups of gardeners. However, when a mechanical digger appeared on top of the beautiful White Mountain that lies behind the city no-one raised an eyebrow. The machine began to scar the face of the mountain permanently as it excavated a wide trench for a motor way running across the face of the mountain. In another culture this would have sparked outrage but not in Oman. This illustrates how attitudes to landscapes differ from one culture to another.
In those few remaining parts of the globe where nature is still overpowering in the minds of human beings attitudes to nature are quite different from those where nature has long since been dominated, as in England. In his nineteenth century poem, 'Pied Beauty' G. M. Hopkins extolled the virtue of diversity melding it with his religious emotions so that words like 'wilderness' and landscape plotted and pieced' acquired an almost religious intensity. People who know English literature understand this, but people with different cultural values have different sensibilities.
It is quite widely accepted that beauty resides in the eye of the beholder, and such is the case when it comes to scenery. Some people will view a pipe line running across pristine snow with great satisfaction since it symbolizes economic advancement for them.
People with distinctive cultural affinities are either sensitive to distant perspectives or indifferent to them. People who use English and understand something of its literature may have difficulty in understanding people of other cultures who are unmoved and indifferent when viewing the same scenery.
Online searches for the word 'landscape' will yield about half a million potential results. This illustrates the contemporary currency of the word in our global community. Even in remote African environments some politicians are following cues from countries like China and attempting to revitalize the environment by planting trees. However, most people now live in cities and it is in city contexts that they will respond most significantly to a built environment. Read more about: Landscape