Landscapes and the Mind

In class, we briefly discussed Belden Lane’s book Solace of Fierce Landscapes. I found his thoughts regarding landscapes very interesting. We writes that we live in a natural world framed by the stories we tell. Framing something imposes a certain kind of interpretation on it. With this in mind, he suggests that rather than landscapes being something “out there”, we make them ourselves. This is because we experience landscapes only through our own frames, or manufactured human imagination. In this way, the landscape dwells as much in the mind as it does in its place. Landscape is thus culture before it is nature. Previously, I had always thought of a landscape as something “out there” that looked the same to everyone (unless of course, someone forgot their glasses or is colorblind or something) no matter who you were or where you came from. We discussed, however, that landscapes do not look the same to everyone, nor does everyone experience them the same way. The man who has climbed the mountain is going to see the mountain differently than the man who has driven up and parked at the overlook.