We tend to believe that we look out upon an existing landscape from a viewing point. The general idea is that the landscape is out there waiting to be looked at. I’m going to draw on ideas from the landscape garden movement – and the picturesque in particular – to turn some of our basic beliefs on their head. In this chapter we will discuss landscape as something we look at the world with. I’m going to liken our situation to landscape. I believe that we make the landscape that landscapes our view of it.

We will examine conventional views through an analysis of our conception of landscaping. In particular, we will explore the example of how landscape gardeners composed our conception of what a landscape is.

The landscape garden movement

The word ‘landscape’ was first used as a noun and referred to natural inland scenery or, more obscurely, to the background of scenery in figure (portrait) painting. Landscape was later used as a verb meaning ‘to lay out a garden as a landscape’. As a verb, it was used by those in the landscape garden movement to refer to the way a landscape gardener would compose a garden. For a garden to be ‘landscaped’ (adjective) the garden would be ‘laid out as a landscape’. A landscapist could be either a landscape painter or a landscape gardener – one skilled in landscape work.