Gilles A. Tiberghien's 'Nature, Art, Paysage' Explores Land Art and Landscape Ecology

Gilles A. Tiberghien has published 'Nature, Art, Paysage' with Actes Sud, ENSP, and Centre du paysage, a major contribution to understanding art in nature. Following his earlier 'Land Art' (now out of print after two reprints), this new book extends the inquiry beyond museums and galleries to question our perception of nature. It covers new topographies by land artists of the 1960s-70s, the picturesque, and landscape ecology as artistic metaphor, emphasizing the psycho-temporal complexity of nature, which does not exist in itself but appears fragmented—as framed sections (the term 'landscape' originally a painting format), through romantic narrative, or within panoramic limits. Tiberghien cites philosopher Jackson: 'Landscape, before being an aesthetic reality, is first a human construction, a shared reality' (p. 14). This representation, inseparable from process, creates temporal depth. Reversing the Renaissance perceptual viewpoint, artists like Richard Serra and Daniel Buren free humans from being 'subjects of a fiction' and find new ways to narrate landscape through a series of frames, positioning them as creators. The book develops themes of horizon, world surveying, and sight linked to movement and speed, helping to understand the body-nature dialectic and inviting a physical and mental journey.