In the second part of this paper, I will look at Turner’s representations of his Grand Tour of Italy, (specifically his representations of Rome) where Turner is faced again with the reconciliation between aesthetic traditions of the Classical and artistic motives of the Sublime. First, I will look at Turner’s 1804 painting, The Goddess of Discord Choosing the Apple of Contention in the Garden of the Hesperides as the first trace of Turner’s use of landscape not as a record of external reality but rather as a vehicle for conveying the mind’s expression of the Sublime. This paper will address this transitory phase of Turner’s career in two parts. Third, it demonstrates how the ‘imitation’ of Nature in the practical arts was a useful tool for making claims about earth structureĪs Turner’s career progressed, his interest in the purely beautiful descriptions of English landscape quickly dwindled, as he was captivated by Sublime expressions of interior landscape, or what the romantic poet Wordsworth called, “the picture of the mind.” In this way, Turner’s oeuvre provides the unique opportunity to trace the trajectory of the Picturesque under the lens of one consistent artistic media (painting). Second, it applies these concepts within the framework of the vitrified-ruin debate that antiquarians and geologists engaged. First, the essay examines the meaning and role of ‘imitation’ and ‘copying’ in art and architecture. Focusing on the contributions of John MacCulloch (1773–1835) over the ambiguous identification of vitrified ruins, this paper shows how geological history was entwined with broad cultural interests in the progress of society and its rise from Nature. The case of vitrified forts discovered in Scotland highlights how the theoretical and practical arts directly informed geological theory to create what George Bellas Greenough (1778–1855) claimed was a ‘philosophical pursuit’. The histories of architecture, and the fine and practical arts regularly functioned as proxies for visualizing the history, structure and operations of the earth. A blend of antiquarianhistorical methodology deeply affected the geological narratives that British savants and gentlemen of science developed during this period. I explore this other Scarpa that the history of modern gardens, landscapes, and architecture have largely ignored and is virtually absent in the Scarpa literature.ĭuring the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries antiquarians, geologists and savants debated whether the summits of particular Highland mountains were the vestiges of iron-age forts or evidence of extinct volcanoes. Yet, in Carlo Scarpa: Opera completa (Dal Co and Mazzariol, 1984), the de facto definitive source on Scarpa, Sergio Polano’s “Catologo delle opere,” lists only four garden and landscape-related projects. This other Scarpa had a subtle and complex understanding of the landscape dimension of his work –intrinsically connected to his designs of exhibitions. Among the “other Scarpas” is the well-read and contemplative man who designed more than seventy discrete landscapes and gardens, more than any other single project type in his oeuvre. The best known Scarpa was the designer of museums (new and renovated), exhibitions, glassware, and furniture, much of which is documented in the literature on his work. There were, in short, several Carlo Scarpas. More than half of his building designs were never implemented or were built by others after his death. He was occasionally in court because he practiced architecture without a license, which may in part explain why he designed far more exhibitions than buildings. Another commonplace is the assertion that, above all, Scarpa was an architect. Chapter 6: (from: A Transparent Mirror: Landscape and Garden in the Work of Carlo Scarpa) The mercurial creative production of Carlo Scarpa (1906-1978) has been forced, for too long, into a bed of Procustes – the focus of which tends to be the repetitive description of his obsession with over articulated details, rich materials, and a limitless capacity for self-referential caprice.
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