Landscape As Sign Language

What do we like about landscape and why do we like it? In his book, 'The Experience of Landscape' (1975), the geographer Jay Appleton suggests that our aesthetic of landscape derives from primitive, hunter-gatherer instincts: we judge a landscape according to its value as a viewpoint (‘prospect’) or as shelter (‘refuge’).

Appleton's theory extends to Romantic notions of the Picturesque and Sublime and is illustrated at length in this collaboration with Simon Warner, one of the North's most active photographers. Views from Scotland, Wales and England are accompanied by detailed captions, while extracts from Appleton's recent poetry adds a literary perspective to his theories.