In the Foreword of the new section on “What to Read” Jorge writes: “no books appear to have been written about the appreciation of landscapes” and thinks this as puzzling. This might certainly be puzzling… unless we stop to consider an obious solution to the riddle: May be no one writes books about it because there isn’t such a thing as Landscape Appreciation.

     In this and other posts I intend to argue the ‘case for the prosecution’ of Landscape Appreciation, in the role of advocatus diaboli and leave the defense for any of the group members that may find arguments for its (unkörperlich) existence.

    Before we go any farther I’d like to say that my scepticism does not concern those landscapes which are the result of purposeful design by professionals (landscape architects) or amateurs. I won’t argue about the ‘appreciation ’ of  the likes Versailles or the parisian Citroen Park. My scepticism concerns the ‘appreciation’ of the other landscapes, those ‘that happen to be there’ like views of the Yorkshire moors, the Himalayas or the  argentinian pampas.

      That said, I may proceed to outline my case with two lines of argument, the first sort of practical, the second more theoretical. My first line of argument has to do with the issue of ‘landscape appreciaters’.  Antropology, for example, may be said to exist as a field of enqiry simply on the basis of the existence of numerous antropologists; the fruits of their efforts being recorded as documented evidence of whatever they fancied to look into. In brevis: no artists no Art.

    Who are the ‘landscape appreciaters’? Where are they?

    The obious place to start looking is in a Discusion Group like this one. Does anyone here think she/he is a landscape appreciater? If so porquoi?

        About the porquoi:  Thing is, you see, not enough to presume oneself to be an appreciater of this or that. This is where BOOKS come in. In any established field the answers to the ‘perche´  can be contrasted with what books about the subject may say. They don’t have to agree of necessity with what is written inside but they give you a patern for comparison.  Otherwise anything goes. Anything and everything. Tuto! If not books, then peer-reviewed Journals which are considered to give a mark of respectability.

    My second line of argument as advocatus diaboli, I will live for domani. Arrivederci!