Late but nevertheless there , i recently started reading a book by John Berger titled ``On looking''. In the first chapter he enters in questions concerning the immanence of certain relation we, as humans, have established with the animals, among them looking and being looked at.
I am using here a concept of immanence borrowed from Jan Baudrillard in ``L'illusion de la fin''.
Later, thinking about landscape, it came to me that a long time agoa human also happened to be a prey for other animals, see here .
Say till the end of 1700 AC, in Europe, later in America, earlier in Japan and China (could be i am not sure of it).
The concept of landscape, ``paesaggio'' in Italian came to western culture in between 800 AC and 1200 AC. Caution here since the roots are different, the concept come to England from Holland and not directly from Italy. The beginnings in painting is conventionally located in Siena see here. A nice landscape was one well ordered and well connected to the city. In those times a city with such a landscape was considered powerful, consider the problem to nourish large armies.
Now suppose you were a traveler approaching one of those city . At the moment you entered the landscape of the city you were a bit more safer. No more wolves considering you the main entry at least. We've lost such feelings: fear and relief looking (or scanning) the landscape (fear for the opposite of nice landscape, negative we could say). Those feelings could have survived somewhere.
All thinkings are under ``artistic licence'' as usual.
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