Landscape: Concept and Different meanings

We explain that it is a landscape and where this term comes from.Besides, what are the different meanings of landscape.

The word landscape has its origin in French.

What is landscape?

The concept of landscape is used both by geography, by art, and even by literature.While all these meanings are different, they have as a common basis that we find one or more observers who they refer to an extension of land , generally standing out for characteristics that make it different (whether positive or negative).

The word landscape has its origin in the French , in which country refers to a certain region or country, while aje is a suffix used in the French language, used to confer "action" on a particular word.

See also: Relief.

Different landscape meanings

A landscaper intervenes in a space in order to make it aesthetically more beautiful.

• Landscape in geography: In geography the landscape is defined as a «basic geographical document», that is, it is the element basic by which we will work later.They are surfaces on which different elements come into play with each other, in a specific geographical space.In them we can find biotic (all living being), abiotic (those who do not have life) and anthropic ( those that are the result of human interaction with nature).


• Cultural landscape: On the other hand, we find what is called a cultural landscape.In this case it is not a mere natural geographical space, but it is the human agent which modifies its environment.Generally, it speaks of landscape cultural when a certain space contains a great historical background, or significant activities have been developed there for a country or region.UNESCO or the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization grants specific distinctions called «Heritage of Humanity ».An example of this is the Sintra Cultural Landscape, without a doubt one of the most beautiful architectural constructions, located in Portugal.


• Landscape in art: As for art, we can say that the landscape begins to have crucial importance since the Renaissance.It is the Renaissance artists who set the stage for later in Holland in the seventeenth century is considered as an end in itself and not a mere background.While we find certain antecedents in the painting of a religious nature, these were only mere companions, since the end was totally different.Different artistic movements will follow this trend, such is the case of Impressionism in France , for example.In these cases, art already appears as an aesthetic end and not the representation of mythical deities or forces, which manifested only the fear of man facing an unknown world.


• Landscapers: There is a specific profession that is dedicated to the landscape and its modification for aesthetic purposes, they are landscape designers or landscape architects, depending on where we are.Your job is to intervene in a certain space in order to return it aesthetically more beautiful.Many homeowners, and especially the most luxurious, hire landscapers to decorate their parks in a harmonious and beautiful way.They resort to resources such as flora, fountains, among many other elements.

As we said at the beginning of the text, the landscape presupposes an observer and something to observe, generally an extension of territory with its particular characteristics.However, the observer is not a mere passive subject that only "receives" what surrounds him in a sensitive way.

The observer, by the simple fact of being an observer, intervenes on reality, making this his own subjective experience., we can affirm that in the same landscape no observer will have the same experience, although they can observe the same technically.