I. Introduction

The landscape architect begins to design with an idea. The conceptual development of a place begins with an image, an ideal, a memory, or a feeling of place, as well as a concern for function. The influences for a landscape design are many and complex; we do not always know where they originate. The impetus may be a historical recollection, a vision of the future, or what is necessary for the present cultural condition. But certainly the idea for a landscape design does not originate from thin air.

The designing of a landscape is neither unuaried nor is it self-contained. The process of giving form to the landscape is not isolated from other cultural artforms. Historically much has been borrowed from literature, painting, theater, and sculpture in the process of creating a sense of place as well as imagery and content. This 'borrowing' amongst varied artforms is not derivative but instead enriching to the formal aspect of all arts including landscape architecture. We may study the appearance of landscape imagery in poetry or painting and discover a spiritual, personal, or cultural view of landscape form that may greatly enhance the physical design of a place.

The influence of related artforms, however, is not just a matter of form but also a matter of content. In some instances a given landscape image or form may symbolize a personal or cultural meaning. Landscape is experienced not only visually and physically but also intellectually, metaphorically, and emotionally. There are multiple layers of expression and experience possible in the design of landscape. A place may be designed to elicit different types of viewer response: the landscape may be looked at, it may be studied, contemplated, or interacted with. Contemplation and interaction are the levels of response in which dialectic finds expression in landscape imagery.

This thesis presents a process of understanding how a dialectical inquiry into philosophical, political, and cultural issues may be expressed through landscape imagery in literature, painting, and actual landscape gardens. The Method chosen to study dialectical expression in landscape design is a comparative/developmental study of historical and contemporary cases. A brief overview of the philosophical origins of dialectic in ancient Greece will preceed our process of understanding a 'landscape dialectic' to provide a sense of where the idea began. Much of the thesis will be devoted to studying how dialectic is expressed in the landscape imagery of literature, painting, and gardens. The order of topics is partially chronological, but more importantly, will begin with literature, then proceed to painting, and end with gardens. This sequence may suggest an order in the conceptual development of expressing dialectic, an intellectual device, in the arts. Dialectic expressed in the landscape imagery of pastoral poetry, especially the work of the ancient Latin poets Virgil and Ovid, will be discussed first. This will be followed by a brief examination of how a dialectic, formed by a word/image juxtaposition, occurs in the imagery of a group of Renaissance landscape paintings with the common theme of 'Et in Arcadia ego' by the artists Guercino and Poussin. This will be followed by a series of discussions of gardens from the Italian Renaissance to the present century in the following chronological orders first, the moral dialectic of a mythological theme inherent in the sculpture, fountains, and site planning of the Villa d'Este gardens at Tivoli; second, an examination of a historical dialectic in three early 18th century English gardens: Twickenham, Stowe, and Stourhead. The English poetic garden was a significant expression of the political and cultural discourse of the time. All of these historical examples will give a sense of tradition behind the dialectical expression of the 20th century garden, Little Sparta, of the Scottish poet-gardener Ian Hamilton Finlay. In the end this retrospective study of the varied means of expressing dialectic through landscape imagery may suggest a way of making contemporary landscape design more culturally expressive.

In all of the selected examples there will be a degree of ambiguity caused by contrasts in the metaphorical landscape. Metaphor is an important aspect of all the work to follow since it enables landscape images to have several layers of meaning beyond their conventional physical and visual definitions. Metaphorical landscape may also be open to multiple interpretations depending on personal and cultural circumstances. Metaphor, then, allows landscape to become part of a process of self examination for the individual and culture. The metaphorical landscape will often be expressed emblematically and encourage a dialogue between artist-writer-designer and the viewer, between two or more viewers, or between a viewer and his/her own culture. The content of this dialogue will vary depending on the time and place in which both the artist and viewer live.

The work to be studied is limited to specific examples drawn from the ancient to modern Western European traditions in literature, art, and landscape gardens. This, however, is not to suggest that this is the only tradition in which a dialectical use of landscape imagery has been used or could be used. It should be kept in mind, throughout the text, that a landscape dialectic could be used to examine important issues in different cultural circumstances; the intellectual process may be similar even though the message may vary.

This thesis is not intended to advocate or refute any particular cultural or political viewpoint but rather to demonstrate the potential that may exist in landscape architecture for developing landscape imagery that expresses, reflects, or questions contemporary cultural values. A methodology for creating a 'dialectical landscape design' will not be developed here since this would not only limit the expressive use of landscape imagery in an open cultural dialogue but also extremely difficult to deuelop given the evolving nature of art and design and their respective bodies of theory. Any attempt at looking for the metaphorical and dialectical aspects of landscape imagery max have the potential, as in other artforms, for work that allows for multiple levels of interpretation and experience. A tightly defined methodology that precedes a thorough consideration of the conceptual aspect of an idea may lead to the exclusion of many meaningful experiences that can be derived from a design process attempting to address cultural concerns.

This is just an initial step in the development of a design philosophy. Many possibilities for conceptual development need to be considered. This thesis, therefore, is intended to assist anyone involved in landscape design who wishes to explore the idea of dialectic expressed through landscape imagery and its relevance to his/her work, the landscape architectural field, and society. It may serve as a basis from which an individual max develop a dialectic in his/her own design work. In the end it may be found that, through the use of dialectic, the art of landscape architecture is an important part of the cultural discourse of the arts. Likewise, a continuing exchange of ideas and methods between Landscape Architecture and other arts will enrich this discourse.