This blog post examines how the ‘discovery of landscape,’ emerging alongside the formation of the modern viewpoint, led the individual’s inner world into a solitary space, exploring the reversal of perspective captured by literature and art and its significance.
The linear perspective proposed by Brunelleschi in the early 15th century fundamentally transformed the style of Western landscape painting. With the introduction of geometric perspective, which uniformly arranges subjects from a fixed vantage point, painters could now capture nature on canvas exactly as it appeared to the human eye. Literary critic Kojin Karatani critically examined the practices of literary circles adhering to specific literary trends through his so-called theory of landscape, a reinterpretation of this principle of landscape painting.
According to Karatani, a landscape is an object perceived as unified through the gaze of a single person with a fixed viewpoint. The landscape unfolding before my eyes is not nature existing in and of itself; it is here because I am looking at it. In that sense, every landscape becomes an object newly discovered by me. That is, a landscape does not simply exist externally; it becomes a landscape only through subjective perception.
Kojin calls this process the discovery of landscape and connects it to the solitary inner world of the modern individual. For instance, in Kunikida Doppo’s novel, the protagonist feels loneliness yet avoids befriending actual neighbors. Instead, he recalls unknown people encountered by chance on walks or figures from memories he can never revisit, unilaterally projecting his emotions onto them. He declares that all humans are the same in heading toward death, thus everyone is a familiar being. Avoiding actual relationships with neighbors, the protagonist essentially lives in a world formed with people who have no real connection to him. Ko Jin reads in this protagonist, who treats even humans as mere scenery, the archetype of an inner human who discovers scenery through an inverted gaze. Here, Ko Jin concludes that scenery is, in fact, discovered by those who do not look outward.
Ko Jin’s theory of landscape is presented to critique the prevailing social trend within the literary circle, where one side emphasizes interiority or the self, while the other champions the factual depiction of objects, creating an opposing dichotomy. While the representation of the subjective and the representation of the objective may appear contradictory, they are actually intertwined. Those already accustomed to the notion of landscape cannot escape the world arranged by subjectivity, easily believing that what is visible is the true form of the original world. They believe they stand outside the landscape while actually being placed within it. Ko Jin emphasizes that if we call the imitation of the external world born from this belief realism, we must realize it ultimately stems from an inverted gaze. The Russian Formalist view, which finds the essence of realism in defamiliarization, shares this context. According to this perspective, which argues that we must be made to see anew what we have become too familiar with to truly perceive, realism must constantly create new landscapes. Therefore, the realist must always be an inner human.
Of course, some do become aware of their own confinement within the landscape. Faced with the question of what literature is, Natsume Soseki realized that the literary books he had consulted had only reinforced his preconceptions. He promptly stuffed them all into his bag. He explained that reading literary books to understand what literature is felt to him like washing blood with blood. Ko Jin sees this attitude as precisely the result of Soseki becoming aware of his own confinement within the landscape. Once a fixed viewpoint is established, everything captured within that viewpoint is arranged according to its coordinates and eventually takes on the form of an objective world. To doubt this world, one must ultimately question and doubt the fixed viewpoint one possesses. It is precisely here that the unease within the landscape begins.
Then, if we consider landscape painting that does not rely on linear perspective—that is, not Western landscape painting but Eastern landscape painting—can Ko Jin’s theory of landscape be interpreted differently? This is because landscape painting does not follow geometric perspective, making nature appear reproduced as it is. However, even the pine trees in landscape paintings are not actual pine trees existing in a specific time and space, but rather depict the painter’s conceptual pine trees existing in their mind. Ultimately, even if one doubts and questions the world, vague anxieties cannot be dispelled because one knows no other way to confront the world. Nevertheless, those who engage with literature must not neglect to question their own inverted gaze. For the deceptive framework created by this inverted gaze can only be sensed by those who feel the unease within the landscape. Without attempting to simultaneously examine this subtle duality, we will not only fail to properly recognize the situation of discovering the landscape, but will ultimately only write and read literature seen through the eyes of the landscape.
