Introduction • 1. Mystery • 2. Reflection • 3. Discovery • 4. Imagination • 5. Sensation • 6. Vision • 7. Feeling • Presence
A lyrical, compelling account of the British landscape in writing and art from Beowulf to now
Dr Susan Owens is an art historian and exhibition curator who has worked at the Royal Collection and the Victoria and Albert Museum. Her previous books include The Ghost: A Cultural History, described by the Guardian as 'eloquent and lively', and Who Shall Deliver Me? Christina Rossetti: Poetry in Art.
'A wonderfully deft and varied study, full of voices, noticings,
and contrasting ways of looking. Owens has a gift for making the
past feel so close that we might be riding over a hill with Gerald
of Wales or John Leland … Drawing on her years as a curator, Owens
brings a wealth of objects – painted hangings, murals, stage
designs – to set alongside poems, paintings, maps and histories.
Here is landscape as solace, nightmare, challenge, trap; landscape
observed through centuries with worry and affection, distress and
delight' - Alexandra Harris
'Engaging … much of the pleasure of this book – and it is immensely
pleasurable – comes from the author’s own enjoyment and her
sympathy with her subjects' - Jenny Uglow, Times Literary
Supplement
'Wonderfully fluent and revealing … Owens adroitly mixes
literature, art and culture to show how perceptions of the British
countryside have changed over the centuries and how artists and
writers have been at the vanguard of these shifts … Owens uses her
impressively wide frame of reference effortlessly – and always
revealingly – to zoom from panorama to close-up' - Literary
Review
'If you think you know the British landscape, think again. And
think with your eyes and imagination. Susan Owens steps neatly
between artists and writers, seascapes and treescapes, viewed under
mythological, Italian, industrial, and eventually ecological light.
This informative, elegant book wears its learning lightly, moving
sympathetically through space and centuries and inviting us to
become mental travellers, coming with open minds and eyes to the
wonders of the British landscape' - Fiona Stafford, author of The
Long, Long Life of Trees and The Brief Life of Flowers
'[A] lovely, lyrical study .... Gorgeously illustrated and rich in
voices … Fascinating and personal' - Tatler
'Enchanting … Owens has a poet’s skill for finding the right word
or metaphor, lyrical yet spearingly precise' - World of
Interiors
'Timely and comprehensive' - RA Magazine
'Enlightening' - New Statesman
'Owens marries cultural history and nature writing, exploring the
interpretations of a wealth of distinctive voices, from William
Shakespeare and Jane Austen to John Constable and Barbara Hepworth'
- The Arts Society
'A gorgeously illustrated scholarly tome that can be enjoyed and
referred to again and again… [Owens’] erudite alacrity reveals her
skill as art historian and curator… This is a book about how
landscape is interpreted not shaped, and in that it is second to
none.' - Countryfile
'Deftly written and beautifully illustrated … a delight' -
Standpoint
'A panoramic view of the landscape, as seen through the eyes of
writers and artists from Bede and the Gawain-poet to Gainsborough,
Austen, Turner and Constable; from Paul Nash, WG Sebald and Barbara
Hepworth to Robert Macfarlane' - The Deskbound Traveller
'Evocative' - Choice
'A perfect book for a year when striking out from home has been
curtailed' - Arts Society Review
'[An] original and wide-ranging cultural survey' - Best Art Books
of 2020, Sunday Times
'A wide-ranging, enthralling examination of how landscape shapes
the imagination … If you love literature and art and admire a
beautifully written text which wears erudition lightly – this is an
essential addition to the cultural bookshelf' - Daily Mail
'An evocative and crowded chronicle … a book of idylls and
nightmares' - Guardian
'The perfect book for a year when striking out from home has been
curtailed' - The Arts Society
'Engaging and illuminating … Owens’ feet are firmly on the ground,
her critical agenda waged with energy, insight and wit' - Art
Quarterly
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