TOURISTIC LANDSCAPE

TOURIST LANDSCAPE

Attractive scenic landscape, subordinated to tourist purposes, especially in the area of mass tourism; it is a tourist attraction and the object of advertising of the tourist industry.

The tourist landscape is the result of a change in the reading and experience of nature, which at the moment of recognising that wild nature (mountains, forests, lakes) can be a picturesque element of the landscape, has transformed into a recreation area, an “institutionalised entertainment area”. (Wilson) and directed scenery (MacCannell). When discussing the development of mass tourism in the Alps at the end of the 19th century, Simmel talks about the “industrialisation of communing with nature”. On this ground nature began to be perceived as a valuable tourist product and landscapes as scenically attractive spaces worth visiting. According to MacCannell, these processes have led to a situation where nature can be experienced in two ways: recreational or aesthetic. Thus, a new type of space has been created, which has been set aside especially for the tourist. It can be natural (e.g. Niagara Falls) or artificial (e.g. Disneyland), in both cases it undergoes the process of aestheticisation.

The development of tourism reflects the history of “appropriation” of landscapes by creating tourist attractions and tourist infrastructure, in which viewpoints, trails and entire surroundings have been adapted to the needs of tourism. With the growing industrialisation, especially in England, rural areas were increasingly appreciated for their recreational, visual and aesthetic qualities. The process of creating a tourist landscape has been observed since the turn of the 18th and 19th century, together with a new approach to nature, which accompanied the “aesthetic turn” in travelling (Adler) and the development of mass landscape tourism. An example of these transformations is the Lake District in England, until the eighteenth century regarded as wild and hostile, which, with the change of aesthetic preferences to those allowing to notice its qualifies, began to take on a touristic character. This contributed to the development of tourist infrastructure, the construction of access roads to attractive places and a change in the mentality of the locals, for whom tourists have become a source of income (Andrews). It was also connected with a new “culture of taste” and aesthetics, which through the picturesque and sublime category valorised the pictorial qualities of nature. For this reason, picturesque tours, short trips in search of picturesque landscapes became fashionable. Historically and culturally, it was preceded by the Grand Tour, which influenced the development of certain aesthetic expectations of the landscape and the indication of a model landscape, the ideal of which was the seventeenth-century landscape painting of Lorraine, Rosa and Poussin. Landscape contemplation assumed the recognition of picturesque views and their reconstruction according to the rules of painting composition: tourists were looking for views that could be compared to a painting. Tourists-amateurs of beautiful views, equipped with Claude’s glasses, sketchbooks, brushes and pencils, could be found in landscape parks, resorts, mountains, by the lakes, by the sea.

The transformation of the landscape into a tourist attraction resulted in a change in the type of experience felt: the contemplative aesthetic experience gave way to the tourist experience, the essence of which was aesthetic pleasure – a distanced panoramic view of the landscape, characteristic of a lonely wanderer, was replaced by the collective experience of the view, defined as “tourist’s view”. (Urry). A collective view (tourists, institutions, etc.) is a form of recognition of the attractiveness of the landscape (and any other tourist sites and spaces). This is related to the change in the experience of the world and the consent to giving the painting priority over the original: the tourist landscape has its confirmation in the previously seen paintings.

MacCannell described the transformation of the landscape into a tourist attraction as a process of sacralisation of the view. These are institutional activities occurring in several phases, which include (1) distinguishing by naming (2) “framing and elevation”, i.e. delimiting the official boundaries of the building and placing it in view and emphasising the meaning (through lighting, information signs, barriers, etc.); (3) “placing it on the altar” (e.g. construction of a museum in which an object is exhibited), (4) mechanical reproduction of a representation of an object or landscape (through the dissemination of an image, e.g. on a postcard); (5) social reproduction (e.g. naming a restaurant after the name of the object). In this way, the view, the object, marked as a tourist attraction, also gain artificial landscape surroundings. Institutional activities play a decisive role here, which means that the viewer, observer or tourist no longer defines what becomes a tourist landscape in their view. This role is assigned to institutions and tools used to mark the landscape as a view, which is an offer included in the tourist brochure. The same mechanism applies to objects of nature: mountains, sea, landscapes. This is the result of the transformation of nature into a “landscape park” already observed by Adorn, i.e. its use for the tourist industry. It transforms nature into a recreation space, paying attention to its aesthetic qualifies and promoting specific views, also by separating their specific and characteristic fragments, e.g. identifying the Tatra Mountains with Rysy, Paris with the Eiffel Tower, etc.

[B. F.]

Literature:

Wilson, Alexander. The Culture of Nature: North American Landscape from Disney to Exxon Valdez. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991.

Andrews, Malcolm. The Search for the Picturesque. Landscape Aesthetics and Tourism in Britain, 1760-1800. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1989.

Hoskins, William George. The Industrial Revolution and the Landscape. In: Oakes, Timothy, Price, Patricia (ed.) The Cultural Geography Reader. London New York: Routledge, 2008.

MacCannell, Dean. The Tourist: A New Theory of the Leisure Class, University of California Press, 1999.

Mączak, Antoni. Peregrynacje, wojaże, turystyka. Warszawa: Książka i Wiedza, 2001.

Urry, John. The Tourist Gaze. London: Sage, 2002.

Wordsworth, William. Guide to the Lakes. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977.

Woźniakowski, Jacek. Góry niewzruszone. O różnych wyobrażeniach przyrody w dziejach kultury europejskiej. Kraków: Znak, 1995.