ABSTRACT
From the mid-eighteenth century onwards, artists have created and recorded industrial landscapes which are constitutive of the North of England, thereby producing an artistic legacy that offers contrasting visions of industrialisation and deindustrialisation. Moreover, the positive/negative dichotomy between nature and industry is blurred in some of the images examined in this chapter, which will focus first on depictions of the mutations of the landscape induced by industrialisation and urbanisation throughout the nineteenth century, before considering the place of art in the industrial city (and vice versa) in relation to artistic taste and the development of an environmental awareness. The next section of the chapter deals with representations of industrial urban landscapes produced in the first half of the twentieth century, which shaped and sustained the classic image of the industrial North. The photographic documentation of industrial decline and the subsequent recording of industrial ruins in the post-industrial era are then explored. This period also coincides with the reuse of industrial buildings for artistic and cultural purposes, which leads us to highlight the role of both visual images and the conversion of industrial heritage in modifying perceptions of, and interactions with, former places of industry.
