THE COMPLEX COMPOSITION OF THE CLASSICAL LANDSCAPE

  • The structure of the classical landscape
    • subdividing space into several areas:
      • foreground
      • middle distance
      • background
    • composing a view:
      • combining architecture and landscape
      • combining real elements of the landscape with imaginary ones, or combining together distant buildings

see the CATI website 'image analysis' pages, section on 'the three distances'

Claude Lorrain on the National Gallery website, in the section 'Structured Spaces'
The meaning of the classical landscape
  •   The formal structure grouping the elements makes it perfectly balanced: it is formally 'ideal' ; see the geometrical grid of the ideal city
  • it can suggest change and movement
  • Thought and space  are closely linked; it is a question in semiotics
    • can pictorial embodiments of ideal places add to spatial representation the sense of time or of modality - possibility, unreality?

the ideal city (on the e-cursus website, 'Analyse d'image' course, chapter on perspective)

see 'Analyse d'image' chapter on semiotics

see 'Analyse d'image' chapter on modality

see the later lesson on Time, modality and emblems.