building the american landscape - Univerza v Novi Gorici

Introduction
The purpose of this research is to demonstrate the essential trait of the concept of
landscape, which developed in America from the end of the eighteenth century and
throughout the nineteenth, and the way in which this has marked the principal
artistic, architectural and intellectual thoughts.
Whereas the relationship between man and the landscape in Europe has been
continually subjected to mediation, intellectualization and filtration by numerous
“structures” such as towns, consolidated decision‐making bodies and the different
social roles, in America man has experienced something totally new compared to
the centuries‐old approach to nature and to the perception of the landscape in the
old continent. And it is precisely in America where man and nature developed a
special relationship, with completely modern aims and contradictions. The wild
lands of the North American continent were crossed by masses of migrants who
placed their dreams and their hopes in America. Thousands of people found
themselves in close contact with the purest, most luxuriant nature thanks to
technological developments, such as steam boats and railroads. Even if we bear in
mind the well‐known situations of deprivation of their rights suffered by the black
slaves and the American natives, the extreme egalitarianism imposed by events,
which marked people in the emerging American democracy, together with their
faith in what appeared to so many poor people as the promised land, have created
a sort of specific American religion. It generated not merely a desire, but also an
eschatology, capable of giving a purpose to the destiny of the new American
citizens. Once again, religion in America was strengthened. However, new faiths
were born, which developed in conditions open to social experiments, poetic and
philosophical speculations and utopian experiments.
Thus, in the course of this dissertation, although a specific geographical and
chronological area may be referred to, we will often prefer to use the adjective
American, rather than the term United States, since the former carries broader,
more evocative and perhaps more contrasting issues.
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