Defining Landscape

Nizhoni Franklin

Richard Simpson

Cultural Geography

19 January 2021

Defining Landscape

In the essay, “The Word Itself” written by J.B Jackson, the author discusses the definition of the word landscape and its many different meanings to each person. He uses the origins and definitions to discuss the many different meanings of landscape.

Jackson uses the dictionary definition of the word landscape to introduce us to the idea that it had started out meaning one specific thing. He states “the one we find in most dictionaries is more than three hundred years old and was drawn up for artists” (page 3). He goes on to say that the word only represented an artist’s depiction of a view, and not the actual view itself. He goes on to say that this definition even influenced what gardeners made the actual landscape into. This shows that our original definition involving art soon after became what was wanted in everyday life, creating jobs for people to be creative with nature and make it into a beautiful place to live making it so that more and more landscapes are man-made.

Later in the essay, the author discusses the origins of both syllables and what they meant in different places and languages. With this he goes to say “landscape could well have meant something like an organization, a system of rural farm spaces. At all events it is clear that a thousand years ago the word had nothing to do with scenery or the depiction of scenery” (page 7). This proves that throughout time the word has evolved and changed many different times, possibly starting out solely having to do with farming and going on to associate with art and even changing now to what we know as landscape. 

J.B Jackson’s essay “The Word Itself” talks about the ever changing meaning of the word landscape and that by knowing the history of the word and knowing it will change again will help us to learn more about landscape and what it represents.