on the ‘oblivion’ and ‘misunderstanding of
practices’ (1984: 93).
We do not have to read de Certeau to come
across such observations. We need only to
reopen texts we once read avidly in decades past.
A third discussion of the obliviation of practice
through vision is given by J.B. Jackson. Jackson
remains one of the most astute observers of land-
scape and, indeed, practice:I was an early advocate of studying landscapes from the
air. At one time I had a large collection of aerial views.
But when flying became increasingly unpredictable I
gave it up, and I recently drove from New Mexico to
Illinois and Iowa in my pickup truck. It was a long trip
with many monotonous hours, but I do not regret it. It
broke the spell cast by the air-view of the grid system
and reminded me that there is still much to be learned at
ground level. What goes on within these beautifully
abstract rectangles is also worth observing. (1997: 70)Jackson was disturbed by the distancing
involved in an essentially visual definition of
landscape. This, to him, ignored the lived
character of arrangements of space: ‘we are not
spectators; the human landscape is nota work
of art. It is a temporary product of much sweat
and hardship and earnest thought’ (1997: 343).
His critique of aestheticized looking permeates
his annotations on landscape. In the 1960s he
was an early observer of gentrification with its
heritage areas, museums and coffee-table
books.People, the magazines tell us, are once again beginning
to appreciate the city. Books of glossy photographs of
graffiti, ironwork details, and abstract landscapes are
financially successful despite formidable prices. The
Museum of Modern Art has its walking tours; restora-
tion of old market districts is in full swing, with the end
products economically viable, if often self-consciously
precious ...
Building watching, like bird watching, is a rewarding
hobby. Both can refresh the person who practices them.
Both can drive away apathy and ennui and reawaken a
sense of vitality in the watcher by underscoring the
beauty to be found in everyday life by one who will
search for it. But building watching is a very small and
isolated part of the urban experience. It bears the same
relationship to living in a city as bird watching does to
working a farm or ranch. (1997: 343–4)Cosgrove, while (ironically) appreciating Jackson’s
acute powers of observation, is not happy with
his definition of landscape because it does not
recognize that ‘landscape is indeed the view of
the outsider, a term of order and control, whether
that control is technical, political or intellectual’(1984: 36). He argues that Jackson is not really
talking about landscape because he is too inside
it. It is true that J.B. Jackson had problems with
the term ‘landscape’. Although he is very closely
associated with a journal of the same name and
wrote paper after paper with landscape in the
title, when it came down to it he found it too
slippery and polysemous. He was too interested
in practice and not satisfied with thinking of
landscape in a restrictive sense, as a product of
vision – as ‘a portion of the earth’s surface that
can be comprehended at a glance’ (1997: 306).
Jackson, more than anyone, reveals the limits
and tensions of the landscape idea. On the one
hand he carefully described the origins and
history of landscape in terms of vision, and on
the other he enacted a critique of the term
through an emphasis on everyday routines that
produce and reproduce actual living landscapes.
He asked those writing about landscape to be
careful observers and simultaneously to under-
mine the priority given to the act of looking.
Jackson’s landscapes are ones that people inhabit
and work in and they are landscapes that people
produce through routine practice in an every-
day sense.J.B. Jackson and the practice of visionJackson’s post-secondary education began in
1928 when he enrolled in the Experimental
College of the University of Wisconsin in
Madison where he took a broad liberal arts
course covering art, literature and society in an
interdisciplinary framework. After a year trav-
elling in Europe he went on to Harvard and
majored in history and literature. He was partic-
ularly inspired by Derwent Whittlesey’s course
‘Principles of geography’. He moved from there
to the School of Architecture at the Massachu-
setts Institute of Technology in 1932 and with-
drew after a year, going to an art school in
Vienna where he learned drawing and draught-
ing techniques. Again he left early and bought a
motorcycle which he used to tour Europe for the
next two years. On return to the United States
he moved to New Mexico and became a cow-
boy. During the war he used his learning to
become an intelligence officer – a role that
involved the study and interpretations of maps.
He saw active service in North Africa, Italy and
France. While waiting for the Germans to sur-
render he occupied himself reading the works of
French cultural geographers such as Vidal de la
Blache whom he admired. After the war was274 LANDSCAPE3029-ch13.qxd 03-10-02 4:53 PM Page 274