Spirit of Place

Artists, Writers and the British Landscape

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A lyrical, critically acclaimed account of the British landscape in writing and art from Beowulf to now.

When we look at the landscape, what do we see? Do we experience the view over a valley or dappled sunlight on a path in the same way as those who were there before us? We have altered the countryside in innumerable ways over the last thousand years, and never more so than in the last hundred. How are these changes reflected in – and affected by – art and literature?

Spirit of Place offers a panoramic view of the British landscape as seen through the eyes of writers and artists from Bede and the Gawain-poet to Gainsborough, Austen, W. G. Sebald and Barbara Hepworth. Shaped by these distinctive voices and evocative imagery, this book describes how the British landscape has been framed, reimagined and reshaped by each generation. Each account or work of art, whether illuminated in a manuscript, jotted down in a journal or constructed from sticks and stones, holds up a mirror to its maker and their world.

Extent: 352 pp
Format: Paperback
Publication date: 2021-07-22
Size: 19.8 x 12.9 cm
ISBN: 9780500296356
Introduction
1. Mystery
2. Reflection
3. Discovery
4. Imagination
5. Sensation
6. Vision
7. Feeling
Presence

Press Reviews

Engaging … much of the pleasure of this book – and it is immensely pleasurable – comes from the author’s own enjoyment and her sympathy with her subjects
Jenny Uglow, Times Literary Supplement

Original and wide-ranging
Best Art Books of 2020, Sunday Times

A wonderfully deft and varied study, full of voices, noticings, and contrasting ways of looking. Owens has a gift for making the past feel so close that we might be riding over a hill with Gerald of Wales or John Leland
Alexandra Harris, author of 'Weatherland' and 'Romantic Moderns

An evocative and crowded chronicle … a book of idylls and nightmares
Guardian

About the Author

Dr Susan Owens is an art historian and exhibition curator who has worked at the Royal Collection and the Victoria and Albert Museum. Her previous books include The Ghost: A Cultural History, described by the Guardian as ‘eloquent and lively’, and Who Shall Deliver Me? Christina Rossetti: Poetry in Art.

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