Octavian Eşanu Analyzes Landscape's Contradictions in ARTMargins Article

Octavian Eşanu's article published on May 1, 2021 examines landscape as a concept filled with inherent contradictions. The piece explores how landscape functions within politico-economic frameworks, serving both to preserve humanity's connection to the environment and to obscure injustices like land appropriation and rural labor exploitation. In terms of power dynamics, landscape has historically served opposing ideological agendas including colonialism's territorial expansion and nationalism's focus on territorial sovereignty. These contradictions manifest in formal artistic principles through the tension between horizontality and verticality. Horizontality in art history has been associated with landscape, suggesting spatial expansion but also traditional inertia. Verticality connects to portraiture and broader anthropological concepts of human triumph over nature. The article positions landscape as a medium shaped by multiple masters with conflicting purposes. Eşanu's analysis reveals how landscape representation conceals as much as it reveals about human relationships with land. The content is available through MIT Press as free material.