Reading Iain's essay "Linking land and sea: The cultural landscape of Caribbean fishers", I began wondering if there was perhaps a link, through traditions of landscape art, which could suggest a reason for differences between European and American use of the cultural landscape concept. While Europeans were quick to adopt a heritage viewpoint of cultural landscapes, on the other side of the Atlantic, the concept has had a tough time gaining currency. American designation of protected areas seems to lean for the most part towards natural designations. Can parallels be drawn with Europe in terms of the weighty influence of landscape art on our thinking?

American landscape art had its heyday in the likes of the massive landscape works of the Hudson River School of the mid 19th century. The style emphasizes the grandeur of the American Landscape and interacts with themes of colonialism, exploration and conquest of the West. This style seems still to be well represented in contemporary commercial American landscape photography (e.g. see the noted landscape photography website http://www.luminous-landscape.com/ and note the use of luminous, likely related to 'luminism' as an American landscape art style which came out of the work of Hudson River School approaches).

The school was influenced by the writings of Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson, who were noted in the rise of American Conservationism. Elicitations of the epic proportions of American landscapes are used in contemporary conservationist campaigns to save large, pristine American wilderness, such as the boreal forest or the great continental divide. Although these landscapes are by definition cultural landscapes because of their continuous habitation by human societies, Americans have been wary of adopting cultural landscape language in their own setting, and have similarily exported their landscapes to other parts of the world as part of photographic expeditions intent on securing protection for exotic wildernesses. Perhaps the parallel as such lies in the roots of landscape designations in perception of space through these diverse approaches to their representation in landscape art.

I leave this topic open to discussion related to the political implications of the great traditions of landscape representation. I start with America and Europe for comparison, but of course leave the field wide open.

Not being a fan of landscape art, with the possible exception of photographers like Ansel Adams and his successors, i am not going to comment on the differences between the appreciation of landscape art in either America or Europe.  I do want to reply if only to let you know that someone is reading the forum.  

I like your connecting the conquest of the West to the American emphasis, at home and abroad, on the Natural Landscape.  Not to take the discussion off course, but are there any connections between map making traditions and landscape art?  It seems to me that mapping has a very strong influence on the perception of space.

Hehe, looked at this and thought, I'll wait and see if anyone else jumps in... but in the meantime, I would say why not take a look at map art in this thread---traditions and contemporary approaches. I know there's interest in power and representation of space from members of this forum. There's some interesting stuff right here in Belluno Italy. I'll see if I can get some pictures up for you all.

Yah, so where are the examples Nathan?
Are we talking map art like those drawings of proud conquerors standing at the margin of the map showing the land proposed to be colonized with a new cultural landscape?