Now nearer, crowns with her inclosure green,
As with a rural mound, the champaign head
Of a steep wilderness, whose hairy sides
With thicket overgrown, grotesque and wild,
Access denied; and overhead upgrew
...Cedar and pine, and fir, and branching palm,
...Yet higher than their tops
The verd’rous wall of Paradise up-sprung:
...And higher than that wall a circling row
Of goodliest trees, loaden with fairest fruit,
Blossoms and fruits at once of golden hue
...When God hath shower’d the earth; so lovely seem’d
That landscape...
Ever since there was a species known as man, he has been effecting change on the earth. From the earliest time when we, as a species, put our hand to the rough walls of caves and depicted on them our environment through paintings, we have tried to make sense of our surroundings and create habitats in which we feel at home. Yet, why is it that man can not accept the world as it is, in its “natural” state? What attitudes and belief systems have come into play throughout mankind’s history of shaping the earth? In his book, Traces on the Rhodian Shore, Clarence J. Glacken wrote:
“In ancient and modern times alike, theology and geography have often been closely related... If we seek after the nature of God, we must consider the nature of man and the earth, and if we look at the earth, questions of divine purpose in its creation and of the role of mankind on it inevitably arise.”
I will attempt to answer the question of how man came to shape his surrounding by suggesting that spirituality and religion as well as man’s need for control over his surroundings (or at least grasping some understanding, either real or perceived), played a large part in our role of shaping our environment. To do so, I will journey through the ages, exploring this question mainly as it pertains to the Western world and the effects of its dominant philosophies/ theologies on the land. Along the way, I will point out instances of man being influenced through religion/ spirituality and/or in his dominion over the earth, which, by the end of this discussion, will hopefully give some semblance of credence to the case I have set forth.
To help organize the paper, I look to E.A. Gutkind, British architect and philosopher, and his system that groups together four stages man has undergone throughout the ages in relation to his changing relationship with the land. These stages are divided into categories termed 1) I-Thou and 2) I-It. I-Thou is marked by attitudes of deep respect for the land. There was an understanding that in order to survive, there must be a co-existence with the land. When man has the symptoms of the I-Though attitude, we see that the land takes on almost a sacred quality. Although there is still change in the land, it is little seen. Much of this stage can be traced back to the Paleolithic times. When passing into the I-It mind frame, however, the bonds with the land become disintegrated. Man estranges himself from the land and more dominance is put in force on his surroundings. We see much impact in this phase.
The four stages within the two categories of 1) I-Thou and 2) I-It are subdivided as follows:
1. I-Thou
a. Stage One: Fear and longing for security- where mankind is concerned with survival and there is little understanding of earth processes. Landscape patterns reflect fear- dwellings are typically huddled in circular patterns and look out towards their surroundings.
b. Stage Two: Growing self-confidence and adaptation- where mankind begins to adapt the landscape he inhabits to his particular needs. In this stage, man begins to lose some of the fear that overwhelmed him in the previous stage. Forests and other areas begin to be cleared for agricultural use and technology increases.
2. I-It
a. Stage Three: Aggressiveness and conquest- where utilitarian ideas towards the land take precedence, seen by a sometimes wanton disregard for the land. Man is able to exploit resources because of his advancements in technology (i.e., the Industrial Revolution).
b. Stage Four: Responsibility and awareness- where man recognizes his hand in being a steward of the land.
The last stage, responsibility and awareness, is a relatively new stage in man’s role as a player in environmental change. This stage is marked by the recent environmental movement and is outside the scope of this paper.
Man has ever needed to make his surroundings hospitable for himself, much like any other specie. Man also has a great need for order which provides a feeling of control in an uncertain world. Thus, man, having such needs and being equipped with a mental capacity able to produce change in an environment, has had more effect upon the lands of the earth than any other inhabitant.
Because the earth has undergone many climatic changes during mankind’s stay on earth, we must take into account that differences in temperatures would, of course, account for much of the shaping of the land. During the Paleolithic Age, for example, the earth was recovering from the height of the last Ice Age. Thick sheets of ice covered up to thirty percent of the earth’s surface during this era. Manipulation of the land would have been impossible in those regions affected by glaciers.
However, this is not to say that no changes in landscape were made during the Paleolithic Age, or that glaciers were the only factor keeping mankind from making much of an impression upon the land. The people of this era gathered themselves in small tribes which were nomadic in nature, which kept them from being a sedentary society and building up large areas of land. This people had a belief in “mysterious forces behind all life...expressed in the worship of a Mother goddess of fertility.” During this age we see an inkling of landscape perception beginning to appear with an example from the famous cave painting in Lascaux, France. Other cave paintings of this time are found, among other countries, in Spain and Africa. Experts, such as ethnologist and anthropologist, Leo Frobenius, believe that these paintings were based on sympathetic magic. These paintings were crafted by shamans before a hunt and were expected to bring success to the hunting party. The Paleolithic Age places itself firmly in the I-Thou category of Gutkind’s classification system and is further identified with the first stage of “Fear and longing for security”.
As we move into the Neolithic Age, we start to see a movement from stage one to stage two, that of “Growing self-confidence and adaptation”. During this period we find a people who are beginning to master agriculture as well as domesticating wild animals. Because of these changes, we see the emergence of seasonal and permanent villages and larger societies. These villages were often built by accretion, growing when necessary by tacking on additional space to the outside of a building which gave the overall community an organic appearance. Population grew from a few members in the Paleolithic nomadic tribe to much heavier densities. This occurred especially where fertile soils were being provided by the silt in Mesopotamian river beds or where soils were light enough to be tilled by hand, such as in central Europe. Tools become more advanced, allowing man to make small clearings in the land that were necessary to cultivate the crops that support the adjacent village.
Agricultural plots had several features that were common among them. They were planted in rows to make it easier to walk through. These rows appear as straight lines upon the landscape and may well be considered the first design placed upon the actual land. Furrows were dug next to the rows to catch water and help irrigate the crops, which water many times would come from a holding area. To keep the domesticated cattle and other livestock from entering the garden plots and eating the precious crops, enclosures were made with stumps and branches (which sometimes were still fresh enough to send up new shoots, forming unintentional hedges). Interestingly, we can see a form of each of these features still persisting in gardens today.
Religious worship begins to take shape during this age and is reflected in the “landscape art” that took place in the environment. Most of these designs were intuitive in form, as measurement and geometry were sciences that would come about in the distant future. Megaliths crop up across landscapes. As the people begin to move into the Gutkind’s second stage, we see that they are also beginning to adapt to their surroundings, but are still steeped in a fear stemming from uncertainty about earth processes. These megaliths are believed, by some, to be a type of offering to a greater power for protection from these processes and prosperity in their agricultural endeavors. Many times a miniature of these megaliths would be featured in the garden in the form of a god meant to bless their crops (which today is represented in the tradition of putting a gnome statue in a garden area!).
Definition of a City: “a community of substantial size and population density that shelters a variety of non-agricultural specialists, including literate elite.”
At about 3,500 BC we begin to see evidence of urban civilization and a shift in mankind’s ideas towards the land, and thus begins the Age of Metals. Although many cultures persist with the respect of the I-Thou category through the use of gentle land terracing and small garden plots, many areas have outgrown these humble efforts at sustaining a society and we begin our journey into the I-It series of stages. These societies, seen in such examples as Babylon and Nineveh were comprised of people who were not only agriculturalists, but also craftsmen, military personnel, and a ruling class. With these new classes of citizens and the continued population growth, a rapid change in the land began to take place. This growth and change was only possible because of the advancement, once again, in the tools of the day, which were now being made of metal instead of stone. In the words of Philip Van Ness Myers:
The history of metals has been declared to be the history of civilization. Indeed, it would be almost impossible to overestimate their importance to man. Man could do very little with stone implements compared with what he could do with metal implements. It was a great labor for primitive man, even with the aid of fire, to fell a tree with a stone axe and to hollow out the trunk for a boat. He was hampered in all his tasks by the rudeness of his tools. It was only as the bearer of metal implements and weapons that he began really to subdue the earth and to get dominion over nature. All the higher cultures of the ancient world with which history begins were based on the knowledge and use of metals.
These ancient cities, especially those in Mesopotamia and Egypt, were often built on areas where the elevation was noticeably higher than the surrounding area. If such an area was not available, it was built. These earthworks served a three-fold purpose: to move them closer to their god and the heavens, to protect from flooding, which happened seasonally in Mesopotamia, and to protect from invading enemies, which happened frequently as well. Many of these cities featured ziggurats to define the axis mundi or the connection between earth and the ascension to heaven. Where civilizations once grew by accretion, we now see are pre-planned in a rectilinear order, such as Mohenjo Daro (which was the first planned city), Kahun, which was a company town for pyramid builders, and Babylon, which used the strong lines of its ceremonial Grand Avenue as a clear message of power and control. We also are able to see the layout of another city, Uruk, which was pre-planned with distinct divisions of which “One league city, one league palm gardens, one league lowlands, the open area(?) of the Ishtar Temple, three leagues and the open area(?) of Uruk...”
Gardens took on more religious meaning than previously, and were not only functional but also aesthetically pleasing. Based on the format of a “paradise garden”, of which references can be found in the book of Genesis of the Old Testament , these gardens were square in format, were walled off from surrounding elements and animals, divided into four sections, representing the four rivers of which the verses in Genesis speak, and contained fruit trees.4 These gardens provided cool areas of respite for the upper class, as well as fruits and vegetables for the table.
The first parks also arose at this time. Although not parks as we may view them, they did provide an area for recreation in the form of hunting. These parks were planted with exotic species of plants and animals and had a specific, planned layout in geographic form. These areas were reserved for the noble class and are believed to be not only the original processor to all future parks, but also the first expansion of designed landscape into the environment.3
Moving into the height of the Roman Empire, we find a people obsessed with material goods and beauty. With each new invasion, Rome acquired new ideas to integrate into the planning and design of their capital city, such as the grotto and the agora, which they converted into the Roman Imperial Forum (which form is used as the inspiration for formal areas today, such as the “Quad” area on Utah State University’s campus in Logan, Utah). Roman cities generally were built around their castrums, or military camps, which had primary north/south and east/west streets and secondary streets paralleling these. In the center was an open area for military training, which may have given rise to the town square in later cities. After an area was conquered, these became the center of the new cities. The form of the castrum can still be seen in many European cities today. Even if cities were not based upon the castrum, the Roman landscape still portrayed the domination of man over it by forming centuriae or one-mile square sections of land which were further subdivided into 100 even blocks. Such a treatment of land was unprecedented, and we finally reach the first examples of entering Gutkin’s stage three: aggressiveness and conquest.
Not only did the Romans influence town planning and layout, but they also introduced technology that would allow the population of a city to grow to staggering heights. Romans were masters of such public works as aqueducts, streets, bridges, sewage systems and tunnels, many of these being in continued use today. Also introduced at the hand of the Romans were the first apartment-style buildings, or insulae. All of these advancements helped ease the pressures of a growing population and allowed for further expansion into the surrounding countryside.14
Romans believed their emperors were part of the polytheistic system of gods, being a god themselves. Thus, their expansion into lands beyond their own were most likely seen as a right inherent to them as sacred beings. As the conquered people came under this system of belief (as they were treated like allies) they almost certainly would have taken to the belief in the supremeness of the emperor and likewise adopted Roman ways, including those of city building and land planning. Thus, in the Roman Empire, we view man manipulating the land in never-before-seen ways and spreading the doctrine of domination through the far reaches of the Empire.
With the fall of the Roman Empire and with the ensuing rise of Christianity throughout much of the western world, we find a people deeply rooted in religion. This religion of Christianity would be the main force driving the Middle Ages, a period marked by “direct opposition to the worldly classical serenity and land geometry of the Romans.”3 Unfortunately, in the early period of this era, the Dark Ages, we see a reversal of the great strides made by mankind, not a small portion of this due to the breakdown of the Roman Empire and the loss of travel and trade that accompanied it. Knowledge of the great works throughout history was all but lost to the general population. However, there were those who banded together through the personal desire to lead a simple life dedicated to God. These bands retreated into wilderness areas and began the movement of monasticism. These monasteries kept learning and knowledge alive through the period of the Dark Ages.
Emerging from this dreary period of mankind’s history, we find man seeking heaven in all his works. Thus we see towns dotted with churches whose spires break the skyline “like fingers pointing to heaven.”3 Because of monasteries and the continued progression of knowledge that persisted within them, we also find great advances have been made in agriculture, such as crop rotation, yoking of horses and oxen to plows, new flying buttresses which allowed for larger structures and the development of wind and watermills. These great advances help push forward, once again, the change that man was able to evoke on the land. Because of these advancements, larger settlements begin to occur as they did in the centuries previous to the Dark Ages. And because of these larger societies, we once again see a rising of a class of people who are specialized in certain crafts, which gives rise to trade and commerce.
Both gardens and cities at this time held symbolic meaning. In gardens, we see certain elements and flowers used to represent the purity of the Virgin Mary, as well as representing the Garden of Eden, or paradise. These symbolic elements, such as the rose, gates, and water basins are still widely used today, not only in gardens but also in larger landscape design. Cities were “used...as an image of the divine order...unified, enclosed, dominated by the Church”3 and largely strove to resemble the “City of God” that Saint Augustine refers to in his work Civitas Dei. Descriptions of this city are found in Psalms , of the Old Testament, and were the idyllic aspiration of cities during the Middle Ages.
The days of man looking inwards to reflect upon the eternities and heavens began to close with the beginning of the Renaissance. This age brought forth the idea that the noble could be found within man himself. Humanism is the leading school of thought in this period. This is not to say that religion was done away with, only that it did not monopolize the thinking of Renaissance minds, that truth could be found beyond the scope of church doctrine, and that a balance could be struck between man and religion. The arts and sciences became important focuses of the day and within architecture a return to the “classics” of ancient Italy and Greece was promoted. Formulas for producing exact symmetry and beauty were discovered (or rediscovered), such as the Golden Mean and the Fibonacci Series, which were widely used in design work ranging from architecture, paintings and even seen occasionally in the landscape. Where it was not represented in landscapes, we see walled terraces to control steep hillsides, clipped hedges, parterres and fountains.
In later periods of the Renaissance, we see man come full cycle from where he slipped back to Gutkin's stage two in the Dark Ages and now was returning to stage three, especially with the Rococo movement. This movement was marked by taking the Baroque to the extreme. Landscapes were architectonic in design, and buildings and decorative elements became decadent and ostentatious. Perhaps surprisingly, the appearance of Rococo also marks the re-appearance of works inspired by spiritual contemplation, with the eye ever being drawn up and out, away from the confines of earth. This period marks one striving to join earthly inhabitants with the heavens.3 Many landscapes depicted biblical stories, such as the landscape at Villa Lante (Italy) which talks of man’s journey through the wilderness and great flood to a land that is filled with order and therefore, joy.
The idea that order in the landscape brings joy may trace back to the book of Genesis. In the second chapter, fifteenth verse, we read: “And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the Garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.” The Hebrew translation of the phrase “to dress it” is “to till it”. Here we see that man is set apart to keep the land and be a steward over it, and is commanded to do so by cultivating the land. Further, in Job 10:22, Job describes a land which one goes to die, and describes it thus: “A land of darkness, as darkness itself; and of the shadow of death, without any order, and where the light is as darkens.” Could this not easily be envisioned as areas of wilderness, either in forests or other places that man had not yet tamed?
With the divine command to make order of a land that was order-less, man was also further encouraged to display his power over his surroundings. We see this not only in the cases presented thus far, especially during the height of the Roman Empire and the Renaissance periods, but also as we continue our journey on to the Americas where William Bradford, upon reaching the shores of New England, writes in his journal:
“Besides, what could they see but a hideous and desolate wilderness, full of wild beasts and wild men, and what multitudes there might be of them they knew not. Neither could they, as it were, go up to the top of Pisgah to view from this wilderness a more goodly country to feed their hopes; for every which way they turned their eyes (save upward to the heavens) they could have little solace or content in respect of any outward objects. For summer being done, all things stand upon them with a weather-beaten face, and the whole country, full of woods and thickets, represented a wild and savage hue.”
Being that the American forefathers came from Europe at a time when the Renaissance was in full swing, we can trust that their perception towards the land was one that followed Renaissance thinking, namely that land was to be put in order and that man had dominion over it. Being also a strict people in their Christian religion, they would have taken the word of God, as it comes from the Bible, quite literally. And, in reality, they did. They wasted little time in setting up a colony and exploring their surroundings, as William Bradford goes on to say in his detailed account. Land was cleared, first in small portions for sustenance, but as white man spread along the coast of the continent and then expanded West, with greater and greater gusto. It was seen as not only his right to do so, but also his civic duty. It was used as a tool of keeping order in the land, of keeping the colonies safe from the “savages and beasts”. This duty was maintained throughout much of our history as a country, perhaps even until the 1980’s, a decade which marked the beginning of a new land ethic in which we step towards Gutkind’s stage four. We see it in the 1800’s, under the title of “Manifest Destiny” and also “in the name of progress”. Man continued to pursue his will on the land with the draining of “worthless swamps” such as the Everglades in Florida and in other lower latitude areas. In craggy mountains, man ripped open the earth to find flecks of shimmering minerals or later, ores that would establish the United States as a world superpower.
And so we see, after rummaging through the documents of experts and peering into the journals of those who were there first hand, that man has ever had a need to create order and sense around him, either through a higher power or through sheer brute force. This order was clearly manifested upon the land; increasingly so as religion came to be a driving force of lifestyle and culture in societies across the world. Of this interaction between humans and their land, Gutkin observes:
“Man and nature are the twin agents of the perennial revolution which shapes and reshapes the face of the earth and the character of man’s activities. This struggle, at times violent and sporadic, at others gentle and consistent, but forever demanding a new response to a new challenge, activates the potential energies of man and nature, molding them into a grand pattern of advance or retreat, of creative interaction or disastrous antagonism, and of promise or failure.”20
Notes:
Milton, John. “The Garden of Eden” in Paradise Lost. 1667. This particular volume is located in a book compiled by Robert Chambers: Cyclopaedia of English Literature: A Selection of the Choicest Productions of English Authors, From the Earliest to the Present Time. 339. (Volume 1. Gould, Kendall and Lincoln. 1849.)
Glacken, C.J. Traces on the Rhodian Shore. 35. University of California Press. 1967.
Gutkind, E.A. “Our World from the Air: Conflict and Adaptation” in Man's Role in Changing the Face of the Earth. 11-27. University Of Chicago Press. 1956.
Voyager Magazine. http://explorations.ucsd.edu/Archives/Volume_10/Number_4/Voyager_V10_n4.pdf.
November 16, 2007.
Jellicoe, Geoffrey and Susan. The Landscape of Man: Shaping the Environment from Prehistory to the Present Day. 3rd Edition. Thames & Hudson, Ltd. 1995.
This information is based off two sources, including the aforementioned book by Jellicoe as well as information from Joseph Campbell, in his book Primitive Mythology, the first volume in his The Masks of God set. (Viking Press, 1959).
Diamond, Jared. Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. 89. W.W. Norton & Co. 1999.
Timmons, Michael. “Prehistory”. A presentation from History of Landscape Architecture. Utah State University. August 2007.
Sjoberg, Gideon. “The Origin and Evolution of Cities”. Scientific American. September 1965.
Myers, Philip Van Ness. Ancient History. Revised Edition. Ginn and Company. 1904.
Timmons, Michael. “Mesopotamia and Egypt”. A presentation from History of Landscape Architecture. Utah State University. August 2007.
Written in the ancient text of The Epic of Gilgamesh with translation provided by Maureen Gallery Kovacs. 3. Stanford University Press. 1990.
Genesis 2:8-14: “And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed. 9 And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. 10 And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads. 11 The name of the first is Pison: that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; 12 And the gold of that land is good: there is bdellium and the onyx stone. 13 And the name of the second river is Gihon: the same is it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia. 14 And the name of the third river is Hiddekel: that is it which goeth toward the east of Assyria. And the fourth river is Euphrates.”
Timmons, Michael. “Rome”. A presentation from History of Landscape Architecture. Utah State University. September 2007.
“The Roman Empire”. http://www.pbs.org/empires/romans/ November 14, 2007.
Timmons, Michael. “Medieval Townscapes”. A presentation from History of Landscape Architecture. Utah State University. September 2007.
For example, Psalms 46:4, 5 reads: “There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of tabernacles of the most High. 5 God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved: God shall help her, and that right early.”
Timmons, Michael. “Renaissance Beginnings”. A presentation from History of Landscape Architecture. Utah State University. September 2007.
Bradford, William. Of Plymouth Plantation. (about 1650 AD). http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1650bradford.html. November 14, 2007.
20 Gutkind, E.A. “Our World from the Air: Conflict and Adaptation” in Man's Role in Changing the Face of the Earth. 1. University Of Chicago Press. 1956.
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