ARTH 215(S) The Aesthetics and Culture of North American Woodlands (Same as Environmental Studies 216) (W)
Constituting half of the continent's land area, woodlands have contributed distinctive natural settings, cultural artifacts, and aesthetic influences to wildland habitués commencing with Amerindians: naval stores, whether masts or turpentine; the White Pine Act of 1722; company towns such as Scotia, California; twig furniture; Okefenokee swamp "hollers;" signature foreground gnarled trees in paintings of the Hudson River School; the Canadian Group of Seven lakescapes from Algonquin Provincial Park; Emily Carr's both exuberant and somber evocations of British Columbian rainforests. This course will attempt to unravel the history of the man/forest equation, drawing upon the magisterial scholarship of the Oxford human geographer Michael Williams in Americans and Their Forests, which claims the forest to be "the most important, and certainly the most visually dominant, vegetation on the continent." Attention also to be given to the development and types of woodland literature. This course will attempt to discern the aesthetic differences between regional forest types, whether they be the pinon-juniper "woodlands" of the Southwest, the Great Lakes pineries, the cypress bayous of Louisiana, or our own (Williamstown) Middle Atlantic oak-hickory/ Northern hardwoods zonation. Some consideration will be given to specific tree species and their respective architectures and to the development of knowledge and appreciation of these species, beginning with George Emerson's 1846 legislative assignment, A Report on the Trees and Shrubs Growing Naturally in the Forests of Massachusetts. Such legislative ripples as Shade Tree Commissions and wilderness preservation will also be studied, especially as these facets are seen and understood both as cultural artifacts and as visual ensembles. Format: discussion. Evaluation based on essays, class participation including presentation and peer review. Bi-weekly field sessions. One obligatory all-day field session.
No prerequisites. Enrollment limit: 10 (expected:10). Preference given to those who have taken ArtH 201, American landscape history. Field session fee, for transport: estimated $50.
Hour: SATTERTHWAITE