Laura Aldington To what extent did the new topographic movement reflect changing attitudes towards landscape photography? “Landscape photographs can offer us, I think, three truths- geography, if taken on its own, is sometimes boring, autobiography is frequently trivial, and metaphor can be dubious. But taken together... the three kinds of information strengthen each other and reinforce what we all work to keep in tact- an affection for life.”1 This essay will explore the genre of landscape photography, in particular focusing on the New Topographic movement. The aim of the essay is to evaluate and asses to what extent the New Topographic movement reflects the changing attitudes towards landscape photography. Within this it will therefore come across several other important questions, looking into what is perceived as a landscape, whether aspects of landscape photography may have changed and exploring to what extent the new topographic movement had a role to play in this, if at all. As the aim is to look at changing attitudes towards landscape photography, it may also be considered beneficial when answering the question, to explore political and social factors which may have an influence on landscape photography, and the changing ways people perceive it as a genre. Defining 'landscape' tends to be controversial. There is a difference between 'land' and 'landscape'. In principle the land is a natural phenomenon, although land in modern times (particularly in the developing and developed world) tends to be subject to human intervention 2. This can be seen through acts such as the industrial revolution, industrialisation, urban sprawl and deforestation. These are all actions projected by man which have a destructive impact on the natural 'land'. As a whole, land can be defined more as an objective and raw physical description of the environment we are surrounded by. The term 'landscape' is conceived as being a social construct. A landscape is something strongly influenced by culture. This is made clear when taking time to compare different locations around the globe. Although landscapes around the world have one fundamental similarity, the presence of physical 'land', the way this land is shaped to reflect individual cultures varies spatially. By this definition, a landscape either holds the presence of, or is altered by people. Between the 17th and 18th century, landscape as a genre referred to painterly practice which gathered momentum and prestige in European art history. An example of the early genre can be seen by renowned painter Claude Lorrain. Lorrain is emblematic of the early European landscape painting movement. Training in Italy, Lorrain's ability came from his 1 Quote by Robert Adams from his essay beauty in photography,1981 2 Ingrid Pollard, from Pastoral interludes, 1987 Laura Aldington ability to sketch life around Rome and Naples. Combining the best parts, he would unify them to create 'virtual' landscapes.3 Landscape painting was a key influence to the creation of landscape photography as a genre. These early landscape paintings held pictorial values, specifically the concept of the 'picturesque'. The picturesque is a word derived by the Italian which refers to the view point of the painter, and was elaborated as a theory in England between 1730 and 1830.4 With this in mind, Early landscape painters would use this concept of the picturesque to create secondary representations of the pre-existing world. This was something first established by Italian soon adapted later in the 17th to 18th century by the Dutch. This could be seen in the rise of the merchant bourgeoisie who portrayed a more seemingly natural environment which acclaimed the concept of property ownership. The painters in question would create pieces of artwork depicting land and property owned by the rich and elite. This would include huge country estates with elaborate gardens, often shown from a birds eye plan to exaggerate the sense of scale. These pieces of art work would therefore work as status symbols for the wealthy, often exaggerated and not depicting a true image. England was next to join this picturesque art movement in the 18th century, following on from the Dutch model. In contrast to this, however, English landscape painting is said to supersede the formulaic qualities of earlier landscape painting with scientific accuracy which reflected the increasing prestige and achievements of rising empirical science and technology. 5 These English landscape painting began inspiring renowned garden designers such as Capability Brown who designed country home gardens to resemble paintings. These gardens were built for the purpose of provoking feeling in contrast to the vernacular, which was present in the land previously. In both the reworked land and the landscape picture, the 'poetic garden' such as that designed by Brown, was a pictorial spectacle designed to arouse the spectator's emotional an intellectual senses.6 The word 'landscape' in English initially referred specifically to Dutch paintings and only later denoted the broader idea of view or prospect.7 The concept of the 'picturesque' is imperative to this day in contemporary discussions about 'beauty' in landscape photography images. The invention of photography created a dilemma for painting surrounding the issue of 'truth' and 'fidelity' in vision. When photography came about, around the first third of the 19th 3 David Bate from Photography – Key concepts, history of landscape photography 4 3 Ibid 5 Of mother nature and marlboro men- an inquiry into the cultural meanings of landscape photography – Deborah Bright 6 3 Ibid 7 5 Ibid Laura Aldington century, photographers such as Henry Fox Talbot and Louis Daguerre exploited the use of early techniques such as metal-based daguerreotype process and paper- based calotype negative and salt process. These early photographs were much more formal, in the end they were capturing a more valid picture of reality, compared to the exaggerated picturesque representations created by the early European landscape painters. Early photography with its technological innovations and chemistry was seen as more of a science than an art. Landscape photographs were considered as formal, and functional rather than holding conceptual or aesthetic value. Attitudes in general towards photography as an art form were negative, in particular landscape photography, which was seen to strip the aesthetic appeal from what was considered as traditional 'landscape' art as a genre. Representations of landscape historically have served “an upper-crust cultivated taste for aestheticized nature”8. 'Exaggerating the powers of sight necessarily deprives us of the best pleasures of sight.'9 This quote by John Ruskin draws upon the concept that photography as a media of sight, shows too much reality. This links back to the notion of 'beauty in the landscape', a 'philosophy' of art which became important in the development of photographic 'landscapes' as a particular way of seeing. Eventually photographers such as Ansel Adams and Edward Weston began appealing for photography to be classed as an art, rather than a technical science. To go about this they created what was known as the F/64 club, referring to the use of the Aperture F/64 to maintain a large depth of field in their photographs. Adams in particular was known for his landscape photographs depicting the natural beauty of the American West especially in Yosemite National Park. In the 20th century, landscape photography finally gained a sense of presidency in the art world and therefore step forward as a genre. Landscape photographs by Ansel Adams helped reinforce the image of the American West as an unspoiled wilderness throughout the Cold War era; by contrast, during the post- Vietnam war era, western landscape photography by New Topographic photographers challenged the ideology of such long standing myths of nature and the West.10 The term New topographics is used to refer to the exhibition entitled "New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape". Photographs of a Man-Altered landscape was an exhibition which epitomised a key moment in American landscape photography. 11 The 8 Cultural Landscapes in the 21st Century • Forum UNESCO University and Heritage Landscape and the West: Irony and Critique in New Topographic Photography Kelly Dennis 9 Ruskin's Venetian Notebooks 1849-1850 edited by Iain Bliss, The Ruskin Foundation, Lancaster University. 10 Landscape and the West: Irony and Critique in New Topographic Photography Kelly Dennis University of Connecticut 11 Jenkins, William. New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape. Catalogue. Rochester, NY: International Museum of Photography at the George Eastman House, 1975 Laura Aldington exhibition curated by William Jenkins was held at the George Eastman house, New York, in January 1975. and featured the work of 8 then young American photographers: Stephen Shore; Robert Adams; Joe Deal; Frank Gohlke; Nicholas Nixon; John Scott and Henry Wessel with the addition of European couple Bernd and Hilla Becher. Each photographer was represented by 10 prints and in which were black and white with the exception of photographer Stephen Shore who worked in colour. This essay will look into the attitudes of these photographers regarding landscape photography and how these opinions may differ from previous held beliefs around landscape photography as a genre. The word 'topography' can be defined as the detailed study or mapping of the configuration and surface