Landskipping

What do we think should be in a pleasing landscape? Sky, streams, rocks, trees are often assumed to be necessary components. I’d add hills. And pasture. The landscapes I prefer have an element of man’s hand in them. Not too much, but enough to be able to add stone walls, plough and hedges to the view. And sheep… But everything depends on the balance of the two. A ravishing celebration of landscape, its iridescent beauty and its potential to comfort, awe and mesmerise. Landskipping explores the different ways in which we have, throughout the ages, responded to the land, beginning in the eighteenth century when artists first started to paint English scenery, and the Lakes, as well as Snowdon, began to attract a new kind of visitor, the landscape tourist. Meanwhile, at the same time, an entirely different band of people, the agricultural improvers, also travelled the land, looking at it in terms of its usefulness as well as its beauty. What emerges as universal then and now is a place's capacity to frame and define our experience. Moving from the rolling hills of Dorset to the peaks of the Scottish Highlands, this is an exquisite and compelling book, written by Anna Pavord with zest, passion and deep understanding. A writer with an extraordinary capacity for capturing the natural world around her, Anna Pavord has worked as a gardening correspondent for various newspapers including The Independent and The Guardian. She is the author of gardening guides, as well as books on natural history including Searching for Order, The Tulip, The Curious Gardener and Landskipping.'The mixed landscape of the whole book is cast in very beautiful light.' - The Guardian