Ground Work/The Life of Landscape

Why did landscape become a subject for art in the 18th century and not before? Where might we look for clues to an earlier ‘sense of place’?

Alexandra Harris examines the history of English landscape painting and local writing from the particular perspective of going back to her childhood home in Sussex. She talks with Tim Dee, editor of a timely collection of the best British nature writing newly commissioned by one of the great authorities on the subject - Ground Work. The book explores a sense of place, and our obligations of custodianship in this land.

Professor Alexandra Harris is a Birmingham Professorial Fellow in the Department of English Literature at the University of Birmingham.