VIEW

VIEW

A separate fragment of space, a vast panorama, most often attractive in terms of landscape; visual experience of space.

A view is a prerequisite for the experience of landscape seen in terms of aesthetics, e.g. beauty, picturesqueness or sublimity. It can be a “model” of a painting landscape. As such, it bears witness to the oculocentric nature of the European culture.

According to some theoreticians, in order to become a landscape, a view must become an object of someone’s aesthetic experience. This happens when the observer separates some fragment of reality (view) in the act of viewing, which then undergoes an aesthetic evaluation. The idea of a view is thus inscribed in a specific relation between a human and his environment, experienced as an aesthetic image (humans are spectators, distanced observers, contemplating the “image” stretching in front of them).

The view as a perceived image (landscape) is closely related to the tourist experience (tourist’s gaze), consisting in “consuming” views already known through reproductions on postcards, in albums, tourist brochures. The view understood in this way is confirmed by the idea of a vantage point, i.e. a natural or artificial place distinguished by its spectacular view. In Urry’s opinion, the tourist’s gaze, especially in its collective variant, confirms the attractiveness of the view as a place worth seeing. An important role in the standardisation of contemporary view experience is played by photography, which has widely spread the cult of beautiful representations of nature. The development of tourism means, among other things, that all nature is reduced to the role of a gallery of views. The idea of the view has led to a change in the way people feel the nature, which is treated as a collection of tourist attractions. This concept, as far as it is identified with the idea of landscape, is sometimes criticised as a falsifying image of human relations with the environment, as well as leading to inadequate aesthetic assessments of the environment.

[M. G., B. F.]

Literature:

Carlson, Allen. Aesthetics and the Environment: The Appreciation of Nature, Art and Architecture. London: Routledge, 2000.

Cosgrove, Denis E. Landscape and the European Sense of Sight – Eyeing Nature, In: K. Anderson, M. Domosh, S. Pile, N. Thrift (eds.), Handbook of Cultural Geography, London: Sage Publications, 2003.

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

Ritter, Joachim. Landschaft: zur Funktion des Ästhetischen in der modernen Gesellschaft, Münster: Aschendorff Verlag, 1963.