The Iconography of Landscape
Essays on the Symbolic Representation, Design and Use of Past Environments

The Iconography of Landscape draws together fourteen scholars from diverse disciplines to explore the status of landscape as a cultural image. By applying the art-historical method of iconography--interpreting levels of meaning in human artifacts--to landscapes on paper or canvas, in literary form or on the ground, its contributors show how landscape is an important mode of human signification, informed by, and itself informing social, cultural and political issues. The range of examples is wide in terms of medium, period and place. It covers poetry and promotional literature, architectural design and urban ceremonial maps and paintings; the historical periods discussed range from sixteenth-century Italy to twentieth-century Canada. The book is introduced by the editors' discussion of the meanings of landscape and of the iconographic method in the context of contemporary theoretical and methodological debate on culture and society.

Reviews & endorsements

"...an enlightening, interdisciplinary book that fulfills and perhaps even exceeds their aims. Not only does the Iconography of Landscape offer a `deep' reading of landscape images, in the end it also suggests that the definition of landscape may be as `flickering' and `unstable' as its interpretations." Andrea Kahn in Design Book Review

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Product details

• Date Published: September 1989
• format: Paperback
• isbn: 9780521389150
• length: 330 pages

• dimensions: 224 x 160 x 19 mm
• weight: 0.51kg
• contains: 69 b/w illus. 7 maps 1 table
• availability: Available