“Sometimes a
landscape seems to be less a setting for the life of its inhabitants than a
curtain behind which their struggles, achievements and accidents take place.
For those who, with the inhabitants, are behind the curtains, landmarks are no
longer geographic but also biographical and personal.”
John Berger
A Fortunate Man:
The Story of a Country Doctor (1967)
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Landscape is often perceived as one of the simplest subjects in visual art. Even individuals with no formal engagement with artistic practice frequently draw natural scenery during childhood, and in popular imagination painting is often equated with the depiction of nature. Yet this apparent simplicity conceals significant conceptual complexity. Landscape is not merely a neutral representation of nature; it is a culturally constructed mode of perception shaped by history, ideology, and lived experience. We aim and propose to examine the conceptual foundations of landscape in visual art and cultural theory, with particular reference to the historical formation of landscape representation and its relevance to the cultural context of Assam.
Within the history of visual art, landscape and portraiture constitute two of the most fundamental representational categories. Their conceptual significance extends beyond artistic practice into everyday visual culture. Contemporary digital photography, for instance, distinguishes between portrait and landscape orientations in mobile devices. The distinction therefore refers not only to subject matter but also to formal structures: portrait orientation emphasizes verticality, whereas landscape orientation emphasizes horizontality.Art historically, the primary genres of painting have included portraiture, landscape, still life, narrative scenes, and figure studies. Yet irrespective of subject matter, the orientation of the canvas—whether vertical or horizontal—remains a basic compositional decision. This indicates the close relationship between form and content in visual representation.
Human perception itself appears predisposed to interpret visual experience through these frameworks. Portraiture appeals to the human inclination to recognize and interpret faces, which function as primary sites of emotional and social communication. Landscape, in contrast, situates individuals within a spatial environment. While portraiture addresses identity, landscape provides orientation, context, and spatial belonging.
Stability, Memory,
and the Perception of Landscape
The psychological appeal of landscape partly derives from its horizontality. Horizontal forms are generally associated with stability, rest, and equilibrium. Human bodily experience reinforces this perception: while the upright posture of the body may imply alertness or tension, repose is achieved through horizontality. Consequently, horizontal compositions in landscape painting often evoke calmness and visual stability.
Yet landscape is simultaneously characterized by temporal instability. A landscape is rarely experienced as an entirely present phenomenon; it is mediated by memory and personal history. When individuals encounter a particular river, field, or mountain range, they inevitably relate it to previously experienced landscapes. These memories—whether personal, cultural, or mediated through images—shape perception.
Thus landscape perception is never entirely innocent. A viewer rarely approaches a landscape without prior visual or emotional associations. In this sense, landscape exists not only in the present but also in the layered temporalities of memory and experience.
Problematizing the
Concept of Nature/Natural
The assumption that landscapes represent purely natural environments is
increasingly questioned in contemporary cultural and environmental studies.
What appears to be “nature” often results from historical processes of
planning, management, and intervention.
For example, during my recent visit in 2025 to Scotland, I encountered some transient landscaping works and it made me rethink the idea of landscape and nature. landscapes widely regarded as picturesque or natural—such as the forests and agricultural fields of Scotland—frequently reveal evidence of long-term environmental planning. Plantation forestry, agricultural restructuring, and environmental management have profoundly shaped these environments. The perception of natural beauty therefore obscures complex histories of human intervention.
This observation raises important questions regarding terminology and nomenclature. In many South Asian languages, the word nisarga (nature), derived from its Sanskrit origin, implies an environment untouched by human activity. However, many landscapes commonly perceived as natural are in fact historically produced environments. The distinction between landscape and nature is therefore crucial: landscape refers to an environment as shaped, perceived, and represented by human culture.
The same ambiguity exists in the context of Assam. Forests in regions such as Nagaon or Goalpara are often perceived as natural scenery, yet historical evidence indicates that many such forests were shaped through colonial forestry policies. In a lecture delivered in Sabhaghar, Silpukhuri, Guwahati under initiatives by the ‘Munin Borkotoky Memorial Trust’, historian Rajen Saikia[1] pointed out this fact that the sala trees and those segun trees were actually a part of a futuristic modernist agenda taken up during the colonial period. Similarly, it is a widely known fact that the Bhogdoi River in Jorhat was partially engineered during the Ahom period to supply water to the royal capital. These examples demonstrate that landscapes are frequently the outcome of historical interventions rather than purely natural formations.
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Artist: Pranab Chakraborty
Colonial Forestry and the Modernist Production of Landscape
The shaping of landscapes in South Asia was significantly influenced by colonial modernity. Modernist forest planning emerged under British rule, particularly after the establishment of the Imperial Forest Department in 1864 under the leadership of Dietrich Brandis. Drawing upon German scientific forestry, colonial administrators introduced systematic forest surveys, centralized management, and large-scale timber extraction.
The institutionalization of forest governance through legislation such as the Indian Forest Act transformed forests into measurable and administratively controllable resources. Landscapes were rationalized through mapping, zoning, and bureaucratic management. Forest areas were categorized into reserved, protected, and village forests, and commercial species such as teak and sal were often prioritized through monoculture plantations.
This approach reflected a broader modernist vision of landscape management characterized by technocratic rationality and centralized state control. Indigenous ecological knowledge and customary forest rights were frequently marginalized. Complex ecological systems were simplified in order to facilitate predictable timber production and administrative oversight.Following Indian independence in 1947, many of these institutional frameworks continued, though they were reoriented toward national development. Large-scale afforestation programs, dam construction, soil conservation initiatives, and wildlife protection policies became central components of landscape governance. Conservation programs such as wildlife sanctuaries and national parks contributed to biodiversity protection but also generated tensions with local communities whose traditional land-use practices were restricted.
From the late twentieth century onward, policy frameworks gradually
incorporated participatory approaches such as Joint Forest Management and
community forest rights. Nevertheless, tensions between technocratic
development and ecological democracy continue to shape environmental policy in
India.
The Emergence of Landscape in Western Art
Despite its apparent familiarity today, landscape painting emerged relatively late as an independent genre within Western art history. In earlier artistic traditions, landscapes primarily functioned as backgrounds to religious or mythological narratives.The Renaissance introduced a significant shift toward human-centered representation. In works such as Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, the figure is situated within a recognizable natural environment rather than a symbolic or heavenly backdrop. This integration of human presence and earthly environment reflects the broader humanist transformation of Renaissance culture.Northern Renaissance artists further expanded the role of landscape. Paintings such as Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s The Harvesters and the landscape works of Albrecht Altdorfer foregrounded everyday life within rural environments. By the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, landscape painting achieved full autonomy through the work of artists such as John Constable and J. M. W. Turner.
However, the rise of landscape painting was closely linked to social and
economic structures, particularly systems of property and patronage. As John
Berger has argued, many landscape paintings functioned as visual affirmations of
land ownership. Thomas Gainsborough’s Mr and Mrs Andrews, for instance,
depicts the sitters against the backdrop of their estate, effectively
transforming the landscape into a symbol of property and social
status.Landscape painting thus reflects not only aesthetic appreciation of
nature but also ideological relationships between land, power, and ownership.
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Artist: Lakhinandan Hatimuria
Landscape as Lived and Biographical Space
While landscape may appear as scenic background to an external viewer, it carries profoundly different meanings for those who inhabit it. John Berger’s reflections on landscape emphasize this distinction between external observation and lived experience. For an outsider, a landscape may appear as a picturesque setting; for residents, the same environment embodies personal histories, memories, and struggles.
A road may signify childhood journeys, a river may represent livelihood
and flood risk, and a tree may evoke familial memory or loss. Landscapes
therefore function not merely as geographical spaces but as repositories of
lived experience. The physical environment becomes intertwined with biography
and collective memory. This perspective is particularly relevant in the context
of Assam. The Brahmaputra River, for instance, is often celebrated as a
majestic natural landscape. Yet for communities living along its banks, the
river embodies displacement, erosion, seasonal flooding, and precarious
livelihoods. What appears as scenic beauty from an external viewpoint becomes a
site of everyday struggle for those who inhabit it. Landscapes in Assam
therefore operate simultaneously as physical environments and as cultural
archives.Tea gardens provide another example. Often presented as picturesque
green landscapes, they also represent histories of colonial plantation economies,
migrant labour, and socio-economic marginalization. In this sense, landscape
functions as a political as well as aesthetic category.
Representation,
Illusion, and the Politics of Landscape
The ideological dimension of landscape representation is also evident in
photography. Images such as Michael Nash’s The Illusionist (Warsaw,
1946) juxtapose painted scenic backdrops with the ruins of post-war urban
destruction. Such visual strategies reveal the tension between aesthetic
representation and historical reality.Cultural theorists including Kenneth
Clark, John Berger, and Roland Barthes have emphasized that visual
representations are never neutral. Landscapes may function as ideological
constructs that mask social conflict, historical violence, or political power.
At the same time, the creation of idealized landscapes may serve psychological
purposes, enabling societies to imagine recovery, continuity, and hope in the
aftermath of trauma.
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'The Illusionist', 1946, Location: Warsaw, Poland, Photograph by Michael O’Reilly Nash
Landscape in Contemporary Assamese Art
Despite the conceptual richness of landscape, its role within contemporary Assamese visual art remains relatively limited. In many art institutions, landscape continues to function primarily as an outdoor study exercise for students rather than as a sustained thematic practice.By contrast, Assamese literature and music frequently engage with landscape as a central element of cultural identity. Literary works by authors such as Tilottoma Misra and Homen Borgohain, as well as the songs of Bhupen Hazarika, demonstrate how rivers, villages, and rural environments become symbolic carriers of memory and social experience. (Landscapes as explored in Assamese literary and other cultural practices could be another topic of discussion, so I am not elaborating it here). This contrast suggests the possibility of developing a more conceptually grounded approach to landscape within visual art practice in Assam.
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Artist: Tanvi Das
Toward a Regional Landscape Practice
Given the intimate relationship between place and identity, landscape
offers a powerful medium through which regional cultures may articulate their
historical and social experiences. A consciously developed regional
practice—perhaps conceptualized as an “Assam School of Landscapes”—could encourage
artists to explore local environments as complex cultural spaces rather than
merely aesthetic scenery.
Such an approach would also require rethinking the concept of subjectivity in landscape art. Landscape painting traditionally reflects the emotional or psychological state of the artist. Yet an important question remains: whose subjectivity is represented? Do landscapes also express social relations, political tensions, or structures of caste, class, gender, and identity?
Contemporary landscape painting often abstracts and romanticizes nature,
transforming rivers, trees, and fields into generalized decorative motifs.
However, every element of a landscape exists within specific ecological and
historical contexts. Recognizing this specificity may allow landscape
representation to engage more deeply with lived realities.
Stating again, landscape is far more than a depiction of natural scenery. It is a historically constructed and culturally mediated form of perception shaped by memory, ideology, and power. From colonial forestry policies to personal experiences of place, landscapes embody layered social and historical meanings.A critical engagement with landscape—particularly within regional contexts such as Assam—can therefore reveal the complex intersections between environment, identity, and history. Rather than treating landscape as a passive background, contemporary artistic practice must recognize it as an active field of cultural experience and interpretation. Landscape is always regional and local. My proposal was for an “Assam School of Landscapes”, it could be “Guwahati School of Landscapes”, and coming down to more local and precision, it should be “Basishtha School of Landscapes” (Basistha is the place surrounded by eye-catching forestry and hill-sights, where the Govt College of Art and Crafts, Assam is situated).
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Exhibition display preview
About the Exhibition
Though in this line of thoughts, I strongly argue a new emphasis on
looking at a landscape, in fact entitling the program with a heavily loaded
phrase like “Landscaping Subjectivity”, despite of keeping a connection with
the nature and landscape elements in the work, I would rather say that the
selection of the works included in this exhibition are selected arbitrarily.
All the participants here are students of the Art College and the works
presented here are collected from their existing ongoing practices. So, viewers
may ask where are the landscapes, likewise, since we mentioned the word
subjectivity, exactly whose subjectivity are we denoting, is it of the
landscape as a subject, of the creator artist or of the spectator? In that way
the exhibition premise may seemingly ambiguous.
Not all works here are focusing on landscapes. But if we look for them, the presentation of landscapes is having two distinct approaches- one is idealized and the other is more naturalistically realistic gaze towards the scenery. To exemplify we can see Tanvi Das and Lakhinandan Hatimuria’s two works side by side. Tanvi’s work depicts landscape with a serene and idealized metaphorical way borrowing the temperaments of the miniature painting methods. In contrast, Hatimuria’s landscape is depicting the integrity of human subjects in an integral way, where two characters, possibly mother and daughter duo are seen, with two different eye-sights from two generations positions in the foreground but being a part of the landscape. Outside these two approaches there are works incorporating daily lives as seen in the works of Pranab Chakraborty or exploring practices with cultural elements as seen in Jonaki Rabha’s works. Undoubtedly most of works included in this student’s exhibition are parts of their academic assignments.
In that way landscaping subjectivity, or/and subjectifying landscape, is a conceptual premise. After observing the works of art at the Art College premise we categorized them in four thematic categories. The category The Landscapists explore the workers labourers in the varied landscapes, it addresses the major argument of our discussion that landscape does not necessarily suggest “nature”, but stands somewhere between the natural and the man-made. It is human interference that a sight of a site is labelled as landscape. The second category Landscaping Interior Monologue addresses the second term in the title- “Subjectivity”. It is thematically a more introvert portion where artists explore their personal experiences, existence and introspects borrowing their memories and intimate encounters. Seeing and Looking is an inevitable category where the artists are looking at outdoor, portraying the whatever-there subjects in their own terms. Cultural Landscapes is the last category which may help us to expand the idea of landscape from merely the natural and man-made physical existence to a wider perspective. Clarifying again, this exhibition is not with the works that made with intention of a singular presentation, rather it is a compilation of some existing and ongoing works of some students. In that way the categorization is based on the found materials and it is in the process of observation: if we can see a discourse around looking at a landscape in the recent times.
At the last, it is a poignant gesture that two organizations, Gauhati Artists’ Guild and the Govt. College of Art and Craft came up with a collaborative approach to showcase the students’ work in the heart of the city Guwahati. Nikhileshwar Baruah eminent artist from Guild and Anupam Saikia from the college has been working from ideation to materializing this exhibition, both of them demands an applause. The enthusiasm and supports from the students are the driving force here, the artist-students need special attention from the art enthusiasts. We look for more such collaborations and also wish the art practices become more integral with the city.
Landscaping
Subjectivity is a concept developed by Samudra Kajal
Saikia along with exploring an exhibition featuring emerging artists, curated
by Samudra Kajal Saikia and co-curated by Anupam Saikia. Hosted at the Gauhati
Artists’ Guild
in collaboration with the Government College
of Art and Craft, Assam,
the exhibition is part of the Guild’s Golden
Jubilee celebrations.
Participating Artists (Alphabetical)
Akash Das, Ambarish
Borthakur, Ankur Ojah, Ashawaree Mahanta, Bikash Barman, Bikram Saha, Biswajeet
Nath, Deba Pratim Patowary, Dhananjay Barman, Dubari Kalita, Harshita
Hatibaruah, Jonaki Rabha, Jubin Das, Junmoni Das, Kalpajyoti Das, Kangkan
Saharia,
Kirtiman Rabha, Konsam
Anjita Devi, Koushik Kakati, Kubit Boruah, Lakhinandan Hatimuria, Loknath
Talukdar, Longang Konyak,
Moyur Krishna
Gogoi, Nayan Jyoti Lahon, Pankhi Haloi,
Pinaki Rajbongshi, Pranab Chakraborty, Prandip
Tamuli,
Pritam Barman, Priti
Singha, Rajib Das, Simanta Gogoi,
Sneha Chakraborty,
Subhashree Baishnab, Suliba Sangtam,
Sumi Bonia, Susmita
Das, Tanvi Das, Tinamoni Das, Trideep Nath,
Tuna Sarma, Tutumoni
Saloi, Uddipta Saikia
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Discussions on the exhibition floor
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Lecture demonstration at GCAC |
References
Berger, John. 1972. Ways of Seeing. London: Penguin.
Berger, John. 1980. About Looking. London: Writers and Readers.
Clark, Kenneth. 1949. Landscape into Art. London: John Murray.
Cosgrove, Denis. 1984. Social Formation and Symbolic Landscape.
London: Croom Helm.
Gadgil, Madhav, and Ramachandra Guha. 1992. This Fissured Land: An
Ecological History of India. Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Guha, Ramachandra. 1989. The Unquiet Woods: Ecological Change and
Peasant Resistance in the Himalaya. Berkeley: University of California
Press.
Ingold, Tim. 2000. The Perception of the Environment: Essays on
Livelihood, Dwelling and Skill. London: Routledge.
Mitchell, W. J. T., ed. 1994. Landscape and Power. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
NB.
· The Exhibition dates exteded, and it is on display from Marc 23 to April 03, 2026
· Landscaping the Disciplinary Intersections, A (cross-, inter-, and multi-) dialogic session takes place on 01 April 2026 at the venue.
Note:
Parts of this note were delivered as the 6th lecture under the Golden
Jubilee Lecture Series organized by Gauhati Artists’ Guild at the venue of Govt
College of Art and Crafts, Assam, on February 18th, 2025
Conceptualized and Curated by
Samudra Kajal Saikia
kankhowa@gmail.com, +91 9811375594
Annexure
A leaflet fell in front of me
A leaflet fell in front of me
It is not like any other leaf
There is no second leaf
That can compare to it
A leaflet fell in front of me
Flawless in form,
In shape and sense,
It is not like any other leaf
A leaflet fell in front of me
A leaflet fell in front of me
It descended, just once
A leaflet fell in front of me
It descended, never to rise again
Never to go back in time,
To latch onto the tree again,
To write its old postal address
A leaflet fell in front of me
Do trees remember leaves?
Do leaves remember trees?
A leaflet fell in front of me
Maybe the leaflet thought
It would never fall
Or maybe it knew for sure
That it would
A leaflet fell in front of me
Maybe the leaf thought
It would find its way
To the pages of a diary
Or maybe it knew
That it would merge with soil
To whom will it relinquish itself?
To whom will it relinquish itself?
Maybe it'll carry for someone
A spark of the future
A leaflet fell in front of me
I stepped on the leaf and leapt forward
A careless tread
A whispered crunch
Could I repeat it again?
It leaves no trace behind
I had something important to tell you?
This is that important news
A leaflet fell in front of me
A seemingly ordinary
Yet an extraordinary event –
A leaflet fell in front of me
Translated by Prerana Choudhury
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Student Artists’ exploration with word and images, for the curatorial venture
[1] Dr Rajen Saikia, Political
History of Post-Independence Assam, as a part of the lecture series Plain Facts, Dated, 11 January 2025, organized
by Munin Borkotoky Memorial Trust, Silpukhuri,
Guwahati, Assam
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