ABSTRACT
There are methods for the study of landscapes and places that are both systematic and responsive. Ruskin was a 19th-century art critic with enthusiasms both for landscapes and for seeing clearly. He cultivated his ability to observe carefully and precisely by making studies of clouds, mountains, geological strata, trees and buildings. Heidegger's philosophical writings are a phenomenological exposition of being, of the experience of existence. His work is a demonstration, and sometimes an explicit discussion, of how to think about subtle questions of meaning and responsibility. Joe Powell, a geographer concerned with the qualities of landscapes, has written that the role of geographers is to be 'interpreters of our world: to bear witness to its variety and significance, its beauty and its horror by affirmation and protest'. The paintings of Klee and Turner represent landscapes not as law-governed systems of natural processes but as expressions of continually changing experiences.
