European Vistas / Cultural Landscapes (Diagram: The Detroit Institute of Arts)

For centuries the natural world has played a significant role in the intellectual, emotional, spritual, and aesthetic lives of people of various cultures, especially city dwellers -- people who do not make their living working the land. Many of the beautiful objects in the Detroit Institute of Arts' collection reflect this intersection of the natural world and the human imagination.

European Vistas / Cultural Landscapes explores the changing interrelationship of humanity and the environment -- both natural and built -- over five centuries. Fronia E. Wissman discusses ways that landscapes have been used in culture, from the use of environment as a backdrop for figures, to the practical use of renderings as maps noting specific details, to the more esoteric use of landscapes as representative of various emotional states.

This appealing text offers a historic look at artistic trends and traditions throughout Western Europe, Japan, China, Africa, and the Americas that influenced the creation of landscape artwork from the 1500s to the present.

Using paintings, drawings, photographs, sculptures, and decorative art, this gorgeously illustrated book traces dramatic shifts in tastes, cultural significance, and meaning in European landscape art.