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a.s.
Valinor
Feb 7 2009, 4:04pm
Post #1 of 18
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"Still round the corner there may wait, A new road"
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Interesting art theory article. I immediately thought not only of much of the imagery from the LOTR text, but many of Tolkien's illustrations:
The emotions felt by our distant ancestors towards advantageous landscapes are of little use to us today, as we are no longer nomadic hunters who survive off the land. Nevertheless, as we still have the genetic legacy of those ancient nomads, these emotions can flood into modern minds with surprising and unexpected intensity. People who have spent their lives in cities can find themselves on a country road. Rounding a bend, they are confronted with a turn-off that leads up a valley. Pastures and copses of oaks dominate the foreground; farther up the valley the road winds and disappears into older forest. A stream lined with lush foliage follows the road for some distance and then is lost from view, though its route is indicated by groves of older trees. Far up the valley, a last bend in the road can be glimpsed. Beyond that, higher hills take on a bluish, hazy cast, blending imperceptibly into distant mountains flanked by great cumulus clouds.
Such scenes can cause people to stop in their tracks, transfixed by an intense sense of longing and beauty, determined to explore that valley, to see where the road leads. We are what we are today because our primordial ancestors followed paths and riverbanks over the horizon. At such moments, we confront remnants of our species' ancient past.
"an seileachan"
Some say once you're gone, you're gone forever, and some say you're gonna come back.
Some say you'll rest in the arms of the Savior, if sinful ways you lack.
Some say that they're coming back in a garden: bunch of carrots and little sweet peas.
I think I'll just let the mystery be.
Iris DeMent
Call Her Emily
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Annael
Immortal
Feb 7 2009, 4:22pm
Post #2 of 18
(288 views)
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"Eastward the Barrow-downs rose,
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"ridge behind ridge into the morning, and vanished out of eyesight into a guess; it was no more than a guess of blue and a remote white glimmer blending with the hem of the sky, but it spoke to them, out of memory and old tales, of the high and distant mountains."
My favorite quote from LOTR. To me it means not just the innate longing we have to explore the unknown, but a deep-seated need for there to be an unknown, Terra Incognita, the frontier, the land where "there be dragons" - full of potential wonders and dangers new to us. Now that we know all that Earth has to show us physically, we invent other frontiers: outer space (Star Trek etc.) where the dragons are aliens and most of the frontier is yet unexplored, or alternate realities of our time (Harry Potter) or earlier times (LOTR) where dragons do exist and there are plenty of wonders new to us.
The same stream of life that runs through my veins night and day
runs through the world and dances in rhythmic measures.
- Rabindranath Tagore
* * * * * * * * * *
NARF and member of Deplorable Cultus since 1967
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squire
Half-elven
Feb 7 2009, 5:00pm
Post #3 of 18
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I've always enjoyed "America's Most Wanted" although I think it's just as hard to take seriously as the artists warn us it is.
The question of whether people's attraction to certain types of landscape is cultural or genetic cannot be addressed by an infinite number of cases taken from 19th or 20th century experience, as this article seems to do. That is exactly the time when one world culture, largely based on Western European norms, began to dominate the infinite number of local cultures that had long enjoyed relative isolation.
Shouldn't researchers look into evidence from all human cultures across time for clues about landscape preference in art or tradition? The idea of "preference" for a landscape pre-supposes that one has a choice or can imagine a choice, in what one wants to look at and where one wants to live. The idea of "landscape" or choice itself in such terms is a highly modern one. The argument becomes very circular, very fast.
So children like to climb trees because they are still genetically programmed to do so from their human ancestry on the African savannah - irrespective of all other factors? How would one challenge or attempt to prove or disprove that statement? Though I will admit I always thought they did it because they're so sick of looking up at everything.
squire online:
RR Discussions: The Valaquenta, A Shortcut to Mushrooms, and Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit
Lights! Action! Discuss on the Movie board!: 'A Journey in the Dark'. and 'Designing The Two Towers'.
Footeramas: The 3rd TORn Reading Room LotR Discussion; and "Tolkien would have LOVED it!"
squiretalk introduces the J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia: A Reader's Diary
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a.s.
Valinor
Feb 7 2009, 5:30pm
Post #4 of 18
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I went to nursing school, you know.
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LOL
Not trying to beg off answering, I just simply might not be able to.
I thought the gist of the article was that the author had found some support for the referenced 1993 study "America's Most Wanted" in an earlier theory for landscape preference. Also, the article references the study by Falk and Balling which I believe was this one, done in 1982. Which seems to be quoted a lot.
Art theory, alas, is not something I am at all familiar with.
a.s.
"an seileachan"
Some say once you're gone, you're gone forever, and some say you're gonna come back.
Some say you'll rest in the arms of the Savior, if sinful ways you lack.
Some say that they're coming back in a garden: bunch of carrots and little sweet peas.
I think I'll just let the mystery be.
Iris DeMent
Call Her Emily
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squire
Half-elven
Feb 7 2009, 6:03pm
Post #5 of 18
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That's never stopped you from expressing your thoughts on a million intriguing subjects before, so why start now. This topic seems to be more a question of anthropology and psychology than art theory, and I never went to school in any of those either. Anyway, I tend to post from a kind of bilious gut instinct and cranky middle age, not academic knowledge.
And it shows. I think I must be wrong in my instinctive reaction to the first piece you posted. I dug a little to see if Falk and Balling have been supported by other research since 1982. I found that the "savannah theory" of landscape preference is increasingly accepted. Here is what seems to be a good short review of the literature from just a year or so ago: Lohr, V. I. (2007). Benefits of nature: What we are learning about why people respond to nature. Journal of Physiological Anthropology, 26: 83-85.
Since "America's Most Wanted" is based on (American) adult preferences in an "Art" context, it does not closely reflect the above research about tree shape, landscape, etc. Its point is that children, being relatively uninfluenced by adult cultural norms, have a more universal preference for the savannah model.
I'm still not convinced about the tree climbing, though!
squire online:
RR Discussions: The Valaquenta, A Shortcut to Mushrooms, and Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit
Lights! Action! Discuss on the Movie board!: 'A Journey in the Dark'. and 'Designing The Two Towers'.
Footeramas: The 3rd TORn Reading Room LotR Discussion; and "Tolkien would have LOVED it!"
squiretalk introduces the J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia: A Reader's Diary
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a.s.
Valinor
Feb 7 2009, 6:22pm
Post #6 of 18
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I take that as a compliment. I think.
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That's never stopped you from expressing your thoughts on a million intriguing subjects before, so why start now. This topic seems to be more a question of anthropology and psychology than art theory, and I never went to school in any of those either. Anyway, I tend to post from a kind of bilious gut instinct and cranky middle age, not academic knowledge.
True, that. True I have not let my nursing background keep me from commenting on a million different subjects for which I am not particularly qualified except in the vaguest way (I read the post and was interested being the usual vagueness). I shouldn't have used that excuse. I usually just plunder in where angels might fear to tread, damn the barricades.
I should have just confessed: I did not read the article in depth or ponder it at length, I skimmed and immediately thought of Tolkien's landscapes and, as has become second nature to many of us, I thought to myself: "Myself, this article belongs on Torn in OT".
I did wonder (when I had read the article) if there is a universal appeal to certain kinds of landscapes and thus wonder if at least some of Tolkien's world-wide following might be due to the loving detail of landscapes which include secret roads and vistas of mountains far away with many a river and waterfall in between.
a.s.
"an seileachan"
Some say once you're gone, you're gone forever, and some say you're gonna come back.
Some say you'll rest in the arms of the Savior, if sinful ways you lack.
Some say that they're coming back in a garden: bunch of carrots and little sweet peas.
I think I'll just let the mystery be.
Iris DeMent
Call Her Emily
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Compa_Mighty
Tol Eressea
Feb 7 2009, 6:47pm
Post #7 of 18
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We do tend to long for something when we see paintings and illustrations of landscape... I know I do. As you say, many many Middle Earth Illustrations are about that.
From the many Gondolin pictures we have... to Nasmith's beautiful sea paintings, there is just something that makes you powerfully evoke some place buried deep in your subconscious (your DNA?)
Let me tell you something weird that happens to me personally. I don't like boats. I really don't... but for some reason I have several toy boats and I love boat paintings. This Vingilot scene might be my favorite Silmarillion illustration, for example. And I have always loved Washington crossing the Delaware.
As per landscape... well, one of my favorite painters of all time is a Mexican called José María Velasco. He was a wonderful landscapist, and he captured the Mexican countryside when there was still a Mexican countryside to capture. Most of the places he painted are now covered by cities. So nowadays, there is a romantic sense to his works.
Those volcanoes separate the Valley of Mexico and the State of Puebla. From Mexico City they look the other way around. They are a big part of our culture, iconography and Folklore. One day I'll tell you about the legend... that is when the topic is not about landscape. 
Here's to Del Toro becoming the Irvin Kershner of Middle Earth!
Essay winner of the Show us your Hobbit Pride Giveway!
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burrahobbit
Rohan
Feb 7 2009, 10:56pm
Post #8 of 18
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There's something to be said for gut instinct
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It is a very interesting article, thanks for posting a.s. We certainly do have a great curiousity about how our ancestors lived and how we can connect with them.
But I too can't help a feeling of scepticism when I hear that such and such proves our evolutionary preferences, and that we're programmed to feel a certain way. The article says:
it is called "the Savannah Hypothesis". In brief, this landscape type includes these elements: - open spaces of low (or mown) grasses interspersed with thickets of bushes and groupings of trees;
- presence of water directly in view, or evidence of water nearby or in the distance;
- an opening-up in at least one direction to an unimpeded vantage on the horizon;
- evidence of animal and bird life; and
- diversity of greenery, including flowering and fruiting plants.
These innate preferences turn out to be more than just vague, generalised attractions towards generic scenes: they are notably specific. Those descriptions sound like pretty vague generalised scenes to me!  They could as easily describe landscapes in Europe, the Americas etc. as they could the African savannah. I'm sure evolution does play a significant part in what we find attractive, but it seems to me that any fertile landscape is attractive, from rich coastal waters full of fish to forests filled with game. We humans seem to be very good at exploiting the riches of nature wherever we are. The article also says-
The emotions felt by our distant ancestors towards advantageous landscapes are of little use to us today The beauty we find in nature is exactly what we need today! That's what Tolkien believed at any rate. Sure it's not so directly connected to whether we get food on the plate, but it could still be connected to our survival in the long run and is definitely part of our spiritual happiness.
View my Hobbit Film Adaptation Discussion
(This post was edited by burrahobbit on Feb 7 2009, 10:58pm)
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silneldor
Half-elven
Feb 8 2009, 4:45am
Post #9 of 18
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I sit beside the fire and think
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of all that I have seen,
of meadow flowers and butterflies
in summers that have been........
For still there are so many things
that I have never seen:
in every wood in every spring
there is a different green.
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'One felt as if there was an enormous well behind, ...filled with ages of memory.....but their surface was sparkling with the present; like sun shimmering on the outer leaves of a vast tree, or the ripples of a very deep lake.'
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''To me it means not just the innate longing we have to explore the unknown, but a deep-seated need for there to be an unknown, Terra Incognita''
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Thank you a.s. for this fascinating article.
My personal feelings/thoughts are that the dawn of man expanding/rising above his primal brain brought a vast step from a pure survival mode of existence to the ability to wonder. It is like the germination of a seed moving in darkness suddenly finding the light, and evermore reaching for it.
What is it that is?
Beauty. What is it?
Of all the strivings man has made to rise from just survival, to survival through mystery, to dwelling in mystery itself leaving survival concerns largely behind has left the human spirit/psyche with this vast receeding road that perhaps could be equated with what we observed in Treebeard's depth of the past brought to the present time to drive the ever-extending mystery of the present. The mystery lies within and without still, due to the fathomless that pervades us, and hopefully forever will.
It is 'nature' that provides the fathomless internally and externally, illusioned as separate but are explicitly linked and in the end realized as inseparable.
Art i feel is an expression of that exploration and landscape art in all it's forms seeks to express inexplicable Beauty, Beauty is the mysterious flame that warms us and entices us and connects us with the incomprehensible. The mystery ensues due to humanity interpreting the fathomless in myriad forms. What humanity has become, in its higher form, is a seeker of the unknown or the grand mystery. And as Annael says we would suddenly be lost without 'Terra Incognita'.
So the connections to landscape preferences reflect many interesting things from security to expanding wonder. I cannot recall the source of something i read long ago but it dwells on the concerns of comfort and security in a natural setting in the modern world influenced by antiquity. It first centers on the porch (originally the cave or hut or depth of ground foliage) of the house which offers security from the elements yet offers an unobstructed view of the environment. The second element is being surrounded proximally by trees which offers shade and (further) concealment from the once hostile world. The next element is openness beyond that which offers 1st the ability to observe dangers from far off but also the expanse and the horizon to enhance the growing need to seek grander things. And lastly i think was the element of water being it a river or body of water. This offers of course a water and another food source but also another expanse for the same reasons as above. These were the basic or universal preferences.
I hope i did not leave you too cross-eyed with my ramblings (rambling wreck from the pond-side deck). It was my/yet another futile attempt to express the inexpressible.
''What connects Nature to the spiritual, or requires the presence of the latter? In positive terms, as Alkis Kontos points out, when nature was still largely experienced as integral, alive and active, 'It was the spiritual dimension of the world, its enchanted, magical quality that rendered it infinite, not amenable to complete calculability; spirit could not be quanified; it permitted and invited mythologization.' And I would add, it still is and does.''
Patrick Curry-Defending Middle-Earth-Tolkien: Myth and Modernity - chapter: 'The Sea: Spirituality and Ethics.'
May the grace of Manwë let us soar with eagle's wings!
In the air, among the clouds in the sky
Here is where the birds of Manwe fly
Looking at the land, and the water that flows
The true beauty of earth shows
With the stars of Varda lighting my way
In all the realms this is where I stay
In the realm of Manwë Súlimo
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Annael
Immortal
Feb 8 2009, 4:54am
Post #10 of 18
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I have a friend who used to do landscaping
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she must have held to the savannah theory because she was against digging up all of one's yard and putting in bigger plants. She argued that it was in our nature to want to look out across a "plain" and that's why we cling to our grass lawns. (Clearly the McMansion builders who take up as much of the lot as possible have forgotten this, and that may be one reason why I find those houses so ugly.)
And it just occurred to me that my architect wasband said something similar, but it wasn't about an urge to go explore. He pointed out that people naturally gravitate to places where they can look out over the terrain, yet have something at their back - a porch or deck being the perfect example. He'd been taught this under the name "refuge and prospect," and the theory was that we still feel better if we know nothing can get at us from behind, and we can look out across the territory and see anything that might be approaching.
The same stream of life that runs through my veins night and day
runs through the world and dances in rhythmic measures.
- Rabindranath Tagore
* * * * * * * * * *
NARF and member of Deplorable Cultus since 1967
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Eowyn of Penns Woods
Valinor
Feb 8 2009, 5:42am
Post #11 of 18
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*snirt* They've just described the average golf course...
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which I happen to hate with a passion not to be expected from someone with so much Scottish blood. ;)
Big, ugly wastes of space (and water resources) that make you hot. We doesn't like that much sun and heat, no, precious....
**********************************
*sings*"They could call us...the SIXBURGH Steelers..."
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grammaboodawg
Immortal
Feb 9 2009, 4:06pm
Post #12 of 18
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omg... that's incredibly beautiful!!! *gazes, fixed* //
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"Barney Snow was here." ~Hug like a hobbit!~ "In my heaven..."
I really need these new films to take me back to, and not re-introduce me to, that magical world.
TORn's Observations Lists
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Aunt Dora Baggins
Immortal
Feb 9 2009, 8:11pm
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of a place that always makes me think of Heaven:
Moraine Park
We were there yesterday, and the park service had put a big ugly wire fence around a couple of acres in the middle of it. I think they're studying the effects of elk overpopulation, before they start shooting some of the elk. But it made us both extremely uncomfortable to see that fence there, even though there was a gate and a sign that said you were welcome to come in if you shut the gate.
My great-grandfather's ashes were scattered in that place in the 1930s, and we've scattered some other ashes there in more recent years. I always think of this poem by Khalil Gibran:
When you pass by a field where you have laid your ancestors, look well thereon,
And you shall see yourselves and your children dancing hand in hand.
Anyway, thanks for the great link. Very interesting article!
Edit: As for wishing for what's around the next bend, Uncle Baggins always says that it's not this meadow in particular that makes him think of Heaven, but the mountain pass above, that it's a gateway into an unknown Heaven. (Never mind that we know exactly what's there, and it's pretty heavenly too:
Forest Canyon
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"For DORA BAGGINS in memory of a LONG correspondence, with love from Bilbo; on a large wastebasket. Dora was Drogo's sister, and the eldest surviving female relative of Bilbo and Frodo; she was ninety-nine, and had written reams of good advice for more than half a century."
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"A Chance Meeting at Rivendell" and other stories
leleni at hotmail dot com
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(This post was edited by Aunt Dora Baggins on Feb 9 2009, 8:21pm)
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Aunt Dora Baggins
Immortal
Feb 9 2009, 8:30pm
Post #14 of 18
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That painting definitely grabs me.
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What a stunning landscape!
Here's my very favorite Nasmith painting:
Rivendell
It definitely fits the description of the type of landscape we're discussing.
And I'd love to hear about the legend you mentioned. Is it related to the one about the eagle and the cactus?
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"For DORA BAGGINS in memory of a LONG correspondence, with love from Bilbo; on a large wastebasket. Dora was Drogo's sister, and the eldest surviving female relative of Bilbo and Frodo; she was ninety-nine, and had written reams of good advice for more than half a century."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"A Chance Meeting at Rivendell" and other stories
leleni at hotmail dot com
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Aunt Dora Baggins
Immortal
Feb 9 2009, 8:35pm
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I don't play golf, but I've thought of paying the fee just to walk around some of the ones in my vicinity, in the foothills. Intellectually I agree about the phenomenal waste of water, but in the semi-desert where I live, I have a hunger for "green stuff". I've always thought it went back to the first three years of my life, when I lived in MIchigan, but maybe it's something older.
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"For DORA BAGGINS in memory of a LONG correspondence, with love from Bilbo; on a large wastebasket. Dora was Drogo's sister, and the eldest surviving female relative of Bilbo and Frodo; she was ninety-nine, and had written reams of good advice for more than half a century."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"A Chance Meeting at Rivendell" and other stories
leleni at hotmail dot com
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dernwyn
Forum Admin
/ Moderator
Feb 10 2009, 12:40am
Post #16 of 18
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back for a moment. The blossom on the Great Tree was shining like flame. All the birds were flying in the air and singing. Then he smiled, and nodded to Parish, and went off with the shepherd.
"He was going to learn about sheep, and the high pasturages. and look at a wider sky, and walk ever further and further towards the Mountains, always uphill. Beyond that I cannot guess what became of him. Even little Niggle in his old home could glimpse the Mountains far away, and they got into the borders of his picture; but what they are really like, and what lies beyond them, only those can say who have climbed them."
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"I desired dragons with a profound desire"
"It struck me last night that you might write a fearfully good romantic drama, with as much of the 'supernatural' as you cared to introduce. Have you ever thought of it?"
-Geoffrey B. Smith, letter to JRR Tolkien, 1915
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Aunt Dora Baggins
Immortal
Feb 10 2009, 12:44am
Post #17 of 18
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You are so good at the perfect quote at the perfect time, you know that?
When I was a kid, I couldn't get through Niggle. But now it just sings to me. Thanks for a great quote.
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"For DORA BAGGINS in memory of a LONG correspondence, with love from Bilbo; on a large wastebasket. Dora was Drogo's sister, and the eldest surviving female relative of Bilbo and Frodo; she was ninety-nine, and had written reams of good advice for more than half a century."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"A Chance Meeting at Rivendell" and other stories
leleni at hotmail dot com
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Compa_Mighty
Tol Eressea
Feb 10 2009, 3:35pm
Post #18 of 18
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2 different legends, both fanscinating and deeply engraved in Mexican collective conscience. Mmm... I'll make sure to write about them this week, I am figuring out a context in which everyone might benefit.
Here's to Del Toro becoming the Irvin Kershner of Middle Earth!
Essay winner of the Show us your Hobbit Pride Giveway!
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