Throughout the centuries, the concept of Landscape has been transformed by distinct interpretations that the artists of each age have instilled in their works of art. In Antiquity and until the 15th century, we can find, most of all, the landscape as an element of the Historic Painting, which sought after the ideal of "Natural Beauty". With the scientific achievements of the Modern Age, our knowledge of Nature and of its phenomena — and its "objectivization" — made it possible for landscape to establish itself as an autonomous artistic genre, yet still very classic and naturalistic. Throughout the following centuries, and until the early 20th century, landscape painting was approached by great masters like John Constable, J.M.W. Turner, and Jean-Claude Monet, one of the icons of Impressionism. During this period, as a consequence of the industrialization and urbanization of the modern world, artists developed a different sensibility and awareness of what "landscape" was. We keep finding, in modern and contemporary art, the presence of Landscape as a genre, influenced by other social and geographic events. After all, it has always been there and it is what the Earth has the most.
With this noticeably short overview on the History of landscape, I want to highlight one aspect Tiago Casanova's Pearl focuses on, which is the approach that artists have had and keep having on landscape: there is Man and his intervention on Nature. Therefore, Landscape is not only an aesthetic or geographic "identity", but also a place, a territory that results and reacts to the transformations produced by Man. Known as the "Pearl of the Atlantic" since the 1960s, the island of Madeira (Tiago Casanova place of birth) is the place he was interested in exploring. He sought to discover different locations in his island with the sensibility of a virgin eye, searching for the splendor of its natural settings. At the same time, we sense his profound knowledge and aesthetic awareness of the intervention of Man on that very same landscape. Between these two forces - Nature and Construction - there is the comfort of a viewpoint from which we enjoy the landscape, and the confrontation with a road that bursts into the sea. Madeira’s natural and urban landscapes are captured by a contemporary photographer in a work where there are visible marks of the artist’s background as an architect. Pearl reclaims that ethnographic sense that many bestow on the artistic practice. Let us follow Hal Foster’s call and get back into the Real. A sustainable, fair and better real, one that can respect Nature and Man, one as much as the other.
Translation review by José Roseira