7 Gaze into the Landscape: Can Sensory Immersion, Landscape Reading and . . .
99
or opera lover comfortably and passively seated in a velvet chair
26 or a romantic
rambler contemplating a sea of clouds from a belvedere. In two respects, those of
perceptual change and of struggle, the reference point zero from which all possible
landscape reading proceeds, is no longer the horizon, but the body itself.
7.3.4 A Landscape Above all Structured by its Colours?
Our eyesight is also altered under water, and we perceive the colour range, so vital on
land for our depth perception, differently. Warm colours occupy the foreground; cold
colours take over the background. In this way we give paintings depth. Underwater,
the palette soon shrinks. Red disappears at a depth of five metres and blue takes over,
growing increasingly dark the further down we go. Yellow, a rare colour in nature,
save in exotic fish, is the last to remain deep down, before the blues and greys gain
control. It’s the famous colour of the mythical “yellow submarine”
27 , the costume of
deep-water exploration craft. Thus remain only the (big) blues. Cold and blackening,
they detach us from the near and attach us to the far. Diving therefore always creates
the impression of having travelled far. Through the illusion of infinity and absence
of warmth, the sea’s depths echo the vertical abyss of the sky at night to which we
sometimes turn our gaze from the earth’s surface (Fig. 7.1).
28
7.4 Inventing Approaches and Tools for “Reading”
the Underwater Landscape: A Major Facet
of Presenting and Communicating Through
Landscape in Parks, Trails and Reserves
7.4.1 Attempting to Read via Colour:
Painting the Underwater Landscape
How can aquatic chromatism be represented to better read and make sense of it? Jules
Verne asked the question: “And now, how can I convey the impressions left on me
new and only remaining space of dreams now that planes and cars are shrinking the world? Cf. B.
Lassus, Couleur, lumière paysages, instant d’une pédagogie, Edition du patrimoine, May 2004.
26 Except on the Nautilus submarine with its large glass panels, as Jules Verne wrote from an
apartment and had never dived: “Suddenly, through two oblong openings, daylight appeared on
both sides of the lounge (. . . ) We were separated from the sea by two panes of glass (. . . ) On both
sides I had windows opening over these unexplored depths. The darkness in the lounge enhanced the
brightness outside, and we stared as if this clear glass were the window of an immense aquarium”.
(Jules Vernes, Twenty thousand leagues under the sea, Chap. 14 “The Black Current”). On the
conditions in which he wrote the book and his reveries, see Christian Chelebourg, Jules Verne,
L’Oeil et le Ventre. Une poétique du sujet, Lettres modernes Minard, Paris 1999.
27 Expression made popular by the 1966 Beatles’ song and the eponymous 1968 film.
28 Which reinforces the vertical nature of underwater landscape. Cf. infra note 25.
99
or opera lover comfortably and passively seated in a velvet chair
26 or a romantic
rambler contemplating a sea of clouds from a belvedere. In two respects, those of
perceptual change and of struggle, the reference point zero from which all possible
landscape reading proceeds, is no longer the horizon, but the body itself.
7.3.4 A Landscape Above all Structured by its Colours?
Our eyesight is also altered under water, and we perceive the colour range, so vital on
land for our depth perception, differently. Warm colours occupy the foreground; cold
colours take over the background. In this way we give paintings depth. Underwater,
the palette soon shrinks. Red disappears at a depth of five metres and blue takes over,
growing increasingly dark the further down we go. Yellow, a rare colour in nature,
save in exotic fish, is the last to remain deep down, before the blues and greys gain
control. It’s the famous colour of the mythical “yellow submarine”
27 , the costume of
deep-water exploration craft. Thus remain only the (big) blues. Cold and blackening,
they detach us from the near and attach us to the far. Diving therefore always creates
the impression of having travelled far. Through the illusion of infinity and absence
of warmth, the sea’s depths echo the vertical abyss of the sky at night to which we
sometimes turn our gaze from the earth’s surface (Fig. 7.1).
28
7.4 Inventing Approaches and Tools for “Reading”
the Underwater Landscape: A Major Facet
of Presenting and Communicating Through
Landscape in Parks, Trails and Reserves
7.4.1 Attempting to Read via Colour:
Painting the Underwater Landscape
How can aquatic chromatism be represented to better read and make sense of it? Jules
Verne asked the question: “And now, how can I convey the impressions left on me
new and only remaining space of dreams now that planes and cars are shrinking the world? Cf. B.
Lassus, Couleur, lumière paysages, instant d’une pédagogie, Edition du patrimoine, May 2004.
26 Except on the Nautilus submarine with its large glass panels, as Jules Verne wrote from an
apartment and had never dived: “Suddenly, through two oblong openings, daylight appeared on
both sides of the lounge (. . . ) We were separated from the sea by two panes of glass (. . . ) On both
sides I had windows opening over these unexplored depths. The darkness in the lounge enhanced the
brightness outside, and we stared as if this clear glass were the window of an immense aquarium”.
(Jules Vernes, Twenty thousand leagues under the sea, Chap. 14 “The Black Current”). On the
conditions in which he wrote the book and his reveries, see Christian Chelebourg, Jules Verne,
L’Oeil et le Ventre. Une poétique du sujet, Lettres modernes Minard, Paris 1999.
27 Expression made popular by the 1966 Beatles’ song and the eponymous 1968 film.
28 Which reinforces the vertical nature of underwater landscape. Cf. infra note 25.