Introduction

Those who need to read this textbook on landscape will not fit easily into even a few categories. Many may be students, but their main subject might be one of many; others may be involved in one of the many battles concerning landscape alterations that are under way in courts and inquiries in most countries. Others may hope to discover more about places they love, or even some advice on designing and planting their garden. Some of these will be disappointed, especially the last, as the author’s aim is that you should learn more about yourself, and hence about your attitude to landscape. I cannot even promise that you will learn what ‘landscape’ is, although you will be given some of the arguments and elements that might allow you to answer that question for yourself. At the very beginning we cannot assume very much more than ‘landscape is out of doors’ so if I want to look at a landscape I must go to the window, and there it is. However, immediately we can discover that some places are more landscape than others. The view from my back window looks out across fields to Dartmoor in the distance (Figure 1.1), and this is much more ‘landscape’ than the view from my front window to the road and the garage next door (Figure 1.2). As for the ‘outdoors’, even that might be questioned as I am surrounded by paintings and photographs of places, and these are certainly called landscapes.