The Languages of Landscape - Review

University Park, Pa.: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997. 303 pp.; 13 color ills., 80 b/w. $65.00.

Almost at the very end of his book on The Languages of Landscape, Mark Roskill rehearses the passage from John Ruskin's Modern Painters vol. 4 that discusses J.M.W. Turner's 1843 watercolor The Pass of Faido (Pierpont Morgan Library, New York). Ruskin's dilemma was one that faces all commentators on landscape painting: the relation of the image to its origins in the physical place, or the primacy of subject matter (as perhaps in portraiture) over "matters of invention dependent upon the artist" (Ernest Govett, cited p. 194).

In Ruskin's case, this dilemma was-exacerbated by his long-standing determination to prove that Turner's greatness as a landscape painter depended on his accuracy in representing the natural world. Here, in the Faido, Ruskin suddenly realized that the master had significantly altered the facts of the scene; when Ruskin compared a graphic transcription of what lay before him (a "topographical outline") with his own line drawing after Turner's original study, the latter's work seemed considerably removed from the scene itself. Ruskin brought himself to conclude that Turner's watercolor was "an arrangement of remembrances" not just of that one spot but of the whole journey that the artist had undertaken to reach it.

Roskill uses Ruskin's passage to announce (albeit somewhat belatedly in The Languages of Landscape) the role of memory in landscape art. But, crucial as is that topic, it is not the only issue addressed by Ruskin's chapter on "Turnerian Topography." It alerts us also to the role of the viewer as opposed to that of the artist, privileged in Ruskin's case by his personal relationship and discussions with Turner; to the responsibility of an artist vis-a-vis his subject matter on a variety of counts - but, especially, as with portraiture, in regard to accuracy or recognizability; to the appeal and significance of land of whatever sort - in this case, wild alpine terrain - for both the artist and his possible clients and viewers (that is: Why paint land at all?); above all, what makes land into landscape?(1) This last issue is fundamental, since, as Roskill explains in the conclusion, The Languages of Landscape has argued "from section to section and across time, that landscape art is to be understood as a means of transmitting a certain view or awareness of the natural world" (p. 232).

We are faced, then, with central questions about landscape painting. As Roskill sets out the scheme of his inquiry - both in the introduction (p. 8) and again in rather different terms in the conclusion (p. 228) - this involves a first chapter in which representations of outdoor settings are said to "provide, or support, an equivalence to the unfolding of stories"; then a chapter discusses the role of the viewer and the access he or she has to the imagery; the third chapter explores connections between landscape art and "issues of social and political moment in which nature and culture interact" (p. 8); chapter 4 treats ways in which artistic practice, "the force of social commentary and the cult of spectacle expand upon the meaning of being a landscape artist" (p. 8); a fifth chapter addresses "the modern loss of faith in the scope of an integrative vision" (p. 8); while the conclusion returns to the "hypostatized viewer" (p. 8).

It is a rich and varied agenda, none of it to be gainsaid, and all of it is of exceptional interest. At almost every point Roskill has useful things to tell us, some unusual examples of landscape art to select for analysis, or some methods of proceeding that are challenging. However, it must be noted that his argumentation is often very murky, leaving the impression that perhaps he has rushed on without working out his ideas sufficiently for himself or that the book certainly has not been well edited, as the following representative example shows:

This is not to say, then, that such a landscape of Fragonard [Blindman's Bluff in the National Gallery] courted female viewers, through the way in which it represents what is taken here as being a strongly feminine side to his art; but that nature, in the intimacy and playfulness of the scene depicted, defines itself here in opposition to the receptive and bountiful nature that is mastered by masculine force, to the point of being implicitly under the control or dominance of the male gaze. In particular, the sense of a specific time and of a governing viewpoint is displaced by the role given to memory; if there is an invitation here to enter the landscape, it is not a landscape altered to make it comply with a dream of possession, but one that is appropriate in its scenic resonances to an idealized intimacy and domesticity. In these ways, in contrast to more constrained dependencies on an interior, the "feminine" qualifies of Fragonard's park setting take on a seemingly "natural" signification. (p. 35)

It is not that there is nothing useful there; but readers are disadvantaged who wish to follow Roskill's arguments, relate them to paintings (this one is illustrated in both color and black-and-white), and see them as having a role to play in the larger intellectual structure of the book.