Case Study: Landscape as Genre

This case study tracks, in part, the development of landscape as a genre and how the change of times corresponds with the changing definition of the landscape. What I found particularly interesting was how the definition and subject matter of a genre can be developed to foster the societal needs of the time. European and American landscape photography had a number of uses at its inception, including topographical mapping and for the aristocracy, a means of documenting success and status based on ones landholdings. As time wore on it has been used to capture industrial accomplishments, the grandeur and mystique of the west, and to make pointed political statements about the environment. These variety of uses depend on the inclusion or exclusion of images and elements. No matter how time progresses a photographer can always manage to capture a pastoral or natural landscape, but with the conscious inclusion of specific elements they have the power to transform the definition of the genre. Due to the large number of photographers with the seemingly endless amount of subjects one could capture, the genre of landscape, as Wells asserts, becomes less about uniformity and more about diversity. The genre is looked at in terms of how photographers are interpreting and using the environment around them to convey their message, largely because there are so many messages that could be sent.