Fields of Vision: Landscape Imagery and National Identity in England and the United States (Human Geography)

This work discusses how the world around us is seen, interpreted and constructed. It examines how different landscapes have served to define national identity in England and the United States. The representation of rural, urban and industrial scenes in the works of artists, writers and designers, including John Constable, J.M.W. Turner, Thomas Cole, Humphry Repton and Christopher Wren, is analyzed in depth. Their works are interpreted in the context of their own times and as reinterpreted in later periods. The use of paintings like Constable's "Haywain" in modern publicity is examined, as is the representation of Wren's St Paul's Cathedral in the present Prince of Wales's book, "Vision of Britain". Two chapters examine how landscape conventions developed in England were deployed in definitions of American national identity. The book shows how landscape imagery encapsulates a variety of social relations and forms of knowledge, and how depictions of national identity in landscape affect local, regional and international identities. Daniels emphasizes the relation between landscape depiction and another main expression of national identity - historical narration.