![]() God called the dry ground ‘land’, and the gathered waters he called ‘seas’. ![]() The key passage is in Genesis 1:9 and 10 describing the third day of creation:Īnd God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.’ And it was so. BIBLICAL BASIS OF ATTITUDESĪ major determinant of the attitudes towards mountains was an interpretation of the Bible that, in today’s eyes, seem quite amazing. the storm-wind, wild, comes carrying clouds like mountains through the air… huge caves built of hanging rocks of cloud ( On the Nature of Things. Like Constable and the Dutch painters centuries later, he loved clouds. Only Lucretius seemed to admire mountains, and even climbed them although as a philosopher, he described them as waste places occupying areas better occupied by green meadows. Virgil spoke of Father Apennine, when through his glistening holm oaks he murmurs low, and, lifting himself with snowy peak to the winds of heaven, rejoices. Writers who lived near mountains, such as Catullus, Virgil or Horace scarcely ever mentioned them. The Romans regarded mountains as aloof, inhospitable, desolate and hostile and described them in terms of difficult, sharp, horrid, inaccessible and frozen. The Romans’ attitudes were little different although some considered that the Roman feeling for nature was overall more developed than the Greek (Biese, 1905). far seen look-out places) crags which sentinel the land” “… the wood-crowned summits of the hills Alcman’s ‘mountain summits … glens, cliffs and caves,’ like his ‘dark ocean’s waves,’ were both beautiful and dangerous, associated with ‘black earth’s reptile brood’ and the ‘wild beasts of the mountain wood.’ “ (Nicolson, 1959).Īristophanes was more sympathetic (Gilbert, 1885): “Aeschylus felt the mingled majesty and terror of earthquake and storm, of ‘sky-piercing rocks’ and ‘star-neighbored peaks,’ of the distant Caucasus. Greek poets used terms that were similar to contemporary sublime descriptions: Travelers’ accounts mentioned the dangers and difficulties of travelling in mountainous areas but virtually none described them as beautiful. English mountain poetry rarely mentioned local mountains in the British Isles. Greek mountains were the standard – Olympus, Pelion, Parnassus, Ossa, and Helicon, and these were described as they were imagined, not as they were seen or experienced because few writers had actually seen mountains. Up to the mid-seventeenth century, mountains did not figure in paintings, literature or poetry except along classical lines. The reasons relate directly to the teleological and classical influences traced in the theme: Western cultural attitudes towards landscape. ![]() ![]() She considered that the change was the result of one of the most profound revolutions in thought that has ever occurred. In Mountain Gloom and Mountain Glory: The Development of the Aesthetics of the Infinite (1959), Marjorie Hope Nicolson (1894 – 1981) traced the reasons for this shift, focusing on the literature and poetry of the period. However, as this section will demonstrate, Mais was wrong – Western preferences for landscape have changed significantly, none more so than in regard to mountain scenery. He went on to cite as examples the English downs, the fells and the jagged mountains of the north (Lowenthal, 1978). Mais, in 1938 asserted that Certain canons of beauty are unalterable … Taken generally, you and I, plain men, admire very much what plain men admired in Chaucer’s day, Shakespeare’s day, and Wordsworth’s day. Clearly, neither term was used as endearments.)Īn English writer, S.P.B. Imposthumes or impostumes is a Middle English term for a purulent swelling, a cyst, an abscess. (Wens are an Old English term for a lump, protuberance or wart. The reasons for this change illustrate the influence of culture and new concepts on a society’s attitudes towards nature and landscapes in particular. These were not isolated descriptions they reflected a sea change in attitudes towards mountain landscapes that occurred in as little as fifty years during late seventeenth to early eighteenth centuries. In 1657, mountains were described with epithets such as Warts, Wens, Blisters, Tumours, Imposthumes yet a century later, in 1769, Thomas Gray wrote of the Scottish Highlands: the mountains are ecstatic (Nicolson, 1959). Pre mid-17 th century attitudes Click hereĬhange in attitudes towards mountains Click here Classical attitudes to mountains Click here
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