About the Book
There is no escaping landscape: it's everywhere and part of everyone's life. Landscapes have received much less attention in aesthetics than those arts we can choose to ignore, such as painting or music - but they can tell us a lot about the ethical and aesthetic values of the societies that produce them.
Drawing examples from a wide range of landscapes from around the world and throughout history, Susan Herrington considers the ways landscapes can affect our emotions, our imaginations, and our understanding of the passage of time. On Landscapes reveals the enormous design work involved in even the most naturalistic of landscapes, such as Prospect Park in Brooklyn, and the ways in which contemporary landscapes are turning the challenges of the industrial past into opportunities for the future. These contemporary landscapes, such as a park in Germany that uses industrial relics as ruins and a playground in Japan built on a former landfill, signal a change in the way we think about nature and art. By inviting us to thoughtfully see and experience the landscapes that we encounter in our daily lives, On Landscapes demonstrates that art is all around us.