ABSTRACT
A good deal of writing about landscape posits an essential relationship between landscape and theory. A sampling of the many relationships between landscape and theory proposed by the broad literature on landscape includes the following: theory prescribes landscape, theory mediates the experience of landscape, theory attends to the social aspects of landscape, theory attends to the ecology of landscape. William Bartram's picture, simultaneously a map and a landscape view, also counts as a natural history illustration. Following the conventions of natural history illustration, he presents multiple views of the bird: standing, readying itself to fly, and in flight. The caption, then, with its descriptive and quantitative data, reflects the fundamental intent of the picture: to show what Bartram observed during his travels and to highlight what he deemed to be the most significant or characteristic aspects of the Alachua Savannah. He described the Sandhills landscape in the Carolinas, for example, as elusive and shape-shifting.
