For the purposes of Assignment Four, I have chosen three main texts as reference and background reading. These are:
“A Dream of England, Landscape, Photography and the Tourist’s imagination” by John Taylor
“Landscape and Englishness” by David Matless
“Storied ground, Landscape and the shaping of English national identity” by Paul Readman
What is evident within these texts is the strong association between our sense of National identity and the Landscape. Within this sense of identity is the unifying force of patriotism seen particularly during the Second World war and one that pervades into the recent EU referendum where we witnessed what was once gentle patriotism, evolve into the full force of nationalism, and subsequent disunity.
Another theme that percolates throughout the history of landscape art and photography is that of class. Class, in terms of accessibility and ownership, both to the physical Landscape itself, visual representations of, and the adjudications of taste. We see the early representations of the simple rural peasant folk to the more modern representations of ‘ordinary people’.
What I’d like to explore, is photography’s position and role within the formation and reinforcement of our sense of patriotism and national identity as well as our definitions of class.
Photographic works
- Fox Talbot, Lacock exhibition
- Martin Parr, various
- Simon Roberts, We English
- Ingrid Pollard, Pastoral Interlude
- Fay Godwin
Additional texts
Photography and The Photography reader by Liz Wells
Perspectives on Place by Jessie Alexander
Landscape and Western Art by Malcolm Andrews
Journal articles (where accessible)
Landscape, Place and Environment 