Landscape and Place Articles

 Jesse Ernst

1/19/21

GEOG 101

What does landscape mean and why do many people associate landscape as a word that can’t be defined, ambiguous? Throughout time, people have defined landscape in different ways. Jackson (1984) explains in the article “The Word Itself” how landscape originally “meant a picture of a view; then the view itself” (p. 3).  He allows the reader to understand how painters have expressed different meanings by how they demonstrate their paintings or how others see them.  He also hints ever so slightly of a deeper thought in painted landscapes including what is withheld or included in the painting.  He describes how one person sees landscape as what’s behind the picture and another as the picture itself.  It is important not to take landscape out of the context of its original meaning, “that we always need a word or phrase to indicate a kind of environment or setting which can give vividness to a thought or event or relationship; a background placing it in the world” (Jackson, 1984, p.4).

The article then addresses the history of the word.  The word came from Asian migrant workers before modern European languages.  Jackson described the European variations of the word, all meaning in essence “a collection of lands” (p. 7).  

I find Jackson's closing statement as profound but concise and to the point; landscape should stay defined as “a portion of the earth’s surface that can be comprehended at a glance” (Jackson, 1984, p. 8) and not what we wish we could see or even what we are taught to only look at.  That being said this article helped clarify my thinking when examining geography with regard to landscape.  It’s similar to the painter. The painter can with one stroke of the brush pick up the trash on the street or add deeper snow to a desired ski cabin, but in honesty we should not redefine the word landscape nor redefine the landscape itself.   

I enjoyed Cresswell’s article on place and the way he explains the differences between space and place.  When thinking about the over use of GIS software, I see how it affects our life both positively and negatively. First, we are fortunate to have such technology so accessible to everyone who holds a phone, a vast majority of the world.  Second, it has the power to limit our experiences because we overly rely on its information.  This reminds me of an experience I had a few years ago.  I was walking around downtown Anchorage when I was approached by a less fortunate man wanting $5.50 for a breakfast sandwich. Because I only had a debit card and because of the exact amount of money he was requesting, I agreed to buy him this breakfast sandwich and followed him to a little restaurant tucked between two larger retail stores. After purchasing a sandwich for him, I also purchased one for myself, mainly because of the smells and comments from other people standing in line to order.  The sandwich was a delightful stomach filler, and a place worth spending $5.50 anyday.  On another day a few weeks later I tried taking my wife back to the same place and to my surprise I was unable to find any reference to the place on the internet. I tried several search platforms.  I did find the place; however, only after retracing my steps, where I was walking when I first met the man.

After reading about the difference between place and space in the article, it reminded me of the Red House in Portland that has been highlighted by the media recently.  Some people just see a red house or maybe even coordinates on a map, but don’t understand the idea of the red house.  The red house shows that “when humans invest meaning in a portion of space and then become attached to it in some way (naming is one such way) it becomes a place” (Cresswell, 2015, p. 16).  Furthermore, Creswell points out places like the World Trade Center which would be of little significance if only the coordinates were mentioned.  The name brings up different emotions depending on the person and their relationship to the tragedy.  As Cresswell says, “ All over the world people are engaging in place-making activities. They are all spaces people are attached to in one way or another... that makes a meaningful location.” (p. 10-12).