Canvassing the landscape : an exploration of landscape gardening and artistry in literature and national parks

Historical and contemporary framings of the landscapes found in gardens, literature, and national parks reveal human relationships with nature that converge, despite the distinct differences between these landscapes. These spaces all become 'canvases' onto which artists and interpreters paint nature, human nature, and art. Eighteenth-century English landscape gardens, novels by Jane Austen and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and the American national parks provide an illuminating study of this human relationship with nature and art in the landscape.