Abstract

This book addresses the philosophical question of "What is landscape?" From the birth of the genre of "landscape painting" in the 16th century, Western culture has valued landscapes in terms of their "picturesque" or "painterly" qualities. The creation of the "English landscape garden" was influenced by landscape painting, and "picturesque travel," which became popular in England in the 18th century, sought to recreate the experience of viewing landscape paintings in nature. 1. The book labels this view of landscape that seeks the epitome of landscape in "picturesque" images reminiscent of landscape painting as "the aesthetics of spectacular scenery," traces its genealogy from the late 16th century to the early 19th century, and reveals its "anti-modern" character. 2. It asserts that the "aesthetics of spectacular scenery" is a dystopia of "hortus conclusus," drawing upon John Ruskin's criticism of the "picturesque." 3. The book then clarifies that landscape must be defined not as an "image," but as the "horizon." The "horizon" is the periphery of our consciousness, always present yet somehow perceived. However, certain stimuli draw our attention to this non-thematic object of consciousness. When the non-thematic becomes unexpectedly thematic, the landscape appears to us as the very "thing that was the horizon." The landscape is not an image or a physical structure. To experience a landscape is to receive "what was the horizon" exactly as it is given and to experience it in the context of the world as a whole.