Imaginaries of the Landscape

Annual Conference of the Swiss Association of Art Historians (VKKS | ASHHA | ASSSA) in cooperation with the Comité International d’Histoire de l’Art (CIHA), and the University of Geneva.

The impetus for this conference came from the ever-increasing interest in landscape not only in art and art history but also in several other disciplines (anthropology, environmental science, geography, literature, philosophy). Landscape, with its fraught relationship to nature, has become an increasingly complex and ambiguous term and has resulted in a wealth of research over the past twenty years, not only in art, (landscape) architecture, and art history but also in several other disciplines, including anthropology, environmental science, geography, literature, philosophy. The rapidly changing face of the earth and the challenges posed by climate change and war have increased awareness of the long history of artistic engagement with landscape. This conference takes up this discussion and develops it further by focusing on the frequently conflicting imaginaries created by artists at different moments in history and across different cultures.