Landscape, Nature and the Sacred
della Dora, V. (2016). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Della Dora’s book, by approaching place as a topos: an evocation and a recurring image rather than as a literal space, focuses on its perception and representation within Byzantine civilisation. In particular, rather than landscape or built topographies, the text focuses on ‘the theology of nature of the Orthodox Church, in which Byzantine world views were grounded’ (p. xiv). Della Dora approaches place as a way of seeing and representing the world and uses the perspectival framing of Western versus Byzantine visual iconography as an overarching metaphor. Byzantine iconography, unlike Western visual representation, is non-linear and constitutes an alternative way of seeing. In response to the increasing alienation between humans and the natural world that characterises modernity, Della Dora turns to Byzantium and its interlocked cultural, natural, and spatial histories to reconceptualise our understanding of and relation to nature. The first two theoretical chapters focus on topos and cosmos respectively and their sacred topographies and cosmologies. The rest of the work is divided into Land, Rock, and Water and investigates the biblical imageries of these topographies. The work is foremost significant because it introduces a Byzantium understanding and representation of nature to ancient environmental scholarship and builds an alternative mode of ‘seeing.’
Example quotation
‘Nature is an idea as much as it is a physical reality. It is intrinsically tied to culturally specific ways of seeing, as much as to the dark materials of which the earth is made. Our understanding of the world is entangled with our own values to such an extent that the two can never be fully divorced. By ‘placing nature’ within Byzantine culture and within the discourse of Orthodox Christian thought and practice, this book explores and offers the reader an alternative way of seeing and perceiving the interconnections of place, space, and the world’ p. xiv