building the american landscape - Univerza v Novi Gorici

Francois‐René de Chateaubriand (1768‐1848), who talked about it in three tales 9
inspired by his experiences in the forests of North America (1791).
As in Bartram, here too, the inhabitants of the wild territories of the New World
resembled the characters described by Rousseau 10 according to the taste of the
Europeans of the time. The landscapes were also accurately described, and the
visions of nature combined together and developed parallel to those of the ancient
world 11 . In his scientific report of the voyage made to Latin America between 1799
and 1804 Le voyage aux regions equinoxiales du Nouveau Continent (1810‐1825),
Alexander Von Humboldt (1769‐1859) described majestic landscapes, full of natural
beauty, however, the Old Europe, with its baggage of antiquity and classicism,
remained a frequent term of comparison, despite continuous and sincere denials:
Between the tropics on the contrary, in the lower regions of both Indies,
everything in nature appears new and marvellous. In the open plains,
and amid the gloom of forests, almost all the remembrances of Europe
are effaced; for it is the vegetation that determines the character of a
landscape, and acts upon our imagination by its mass, the contrast of its
forms, and the glow of its colours. 12
On the contrary, Thomas Jefferson (1743‐1826), one of the authors of the
Declaration of Independence (1776) and third President of the United States (1801‐
1809), did not limit himself to simple descriptions or idealizations. He was the first
American to work as project designer to “build” the landscape in his estate of
Monticello (1769‐1809) 13 [Figures 1‐12]. Numerous studies 14 have analyzed the
various phases of the construction of the Monticello villa and the planning choices
9 Les Natchez (written between 1793 and 1799 but published only in 1826), Atala (1801) and René
(1802)
10 See CUNLIFFE, Marcus, The Literature of the United States, Harmondsworth, Penguin Books, 1969
pp. 42‐43 (It. tr. Storia della letteratura americana, Torino, Einaudi, 1970, pp. 44‐45)
11 See DUBBINI, Renzo, Geografie dello sguardo. Visione e paesaggio in età moderna, Einaudi, Torino
1994, pp. 66‐80
12 HUMBOLDT Von, Alexander, Le voyage aux regions equinoxiales du Nouveau Continent, Paris,
1810‐1825 (English translation by Helen Maria Williams, Personal Narrative of Travels to the
Equinoctial Regions of the New Continent, [London, Longman, 1818] New York, AMS press, 1966, vol
III, p. 354)
13 The Monticello estate is included in the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites, together with the
University of Virginia of Charlottesville (1817‐1826), another example of the interest in the
relationship between architecture and the natural landscape.
14 See Bibliography. Here we only mention: BEISWANGER, William, Monticello in Measured Drawings,
Charlottesville, Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation, 1998;
15