Aquaphobia, Tulipmania, Biophilia: A Moral Geography of the Dutch Landscape

In Genesis (1:9–10) it is stated that God gathered the waters into one place, in order to let the dry land appear, which He called earth, while the waters were called seas. In the Netherlands, this process took more than a single day, and it was the work of man. Gradually, a cultivated landscape emerged out of diffuse nature. In the course of centuries, the Dutch were increasingly effective in determining the conditions that allowed coastal and wetland nature to present itself in a more domesticated version. In this chapter, I will assess this process in terms of a moral geography. Different types of landscapes are read as manifestations (or materializations) of different moral attitudes towards nature, while concrete landscape interventions are interpreted as instances of moral criticism directed towards the activities and values of previous generations. In order to flesh out such a “moral geography”, a comparative epistemological approach is taken. The moral profile of particular landscapes or of particular landscape interventions will be determined by means of a systematic confrontation of a variety of sources, notably scientific and literary ones. For it is in the instances of conflict and convergence of these various sources that the moral profile of a landscape emerges.

The basic idea behind this chapter is that landscape types may be read as materializations of the moral ideas and values that guided their creation. I will regard the Dutch landscape as the outcome of a series of dramatic reversals in the interaction between man and nature. As I said, a “moral geography” of a landscape will interpret landscape modifications as forms of moral criticism directed towards the values, choices and achievements of previous generations. In this chapter, I will focus on the decisive highlights, the most dramatic shifts that gave the Dutch landscape its present appearance. Notably, I will reflect on the transitions that occurred during two decisive turning points in the history of the Netherlands, two “Golden Ages”. The first Golden Age was the classical or early modern period, notably the seventeenth century. It will be discussed in Sections 7.3 and 7.4. This episode gave birth to the two most outstanding and enduring icons of the Dutch landscape: the windmill and the tulip. The second Golden Age roughly covers the period between 1880 and 1920. Like the first Golden Age, this episode produced a relatively large number of scientists and artists of renown. While the domestication of coastal and fluvial nature was more or less completed, a new and more “romantic” vision of nature emerged as a competing ideological force. This episode will be discussed in Sections 7.5–7.7. Finally, I will indicate how the new vision just mentioned resulted in the remarkable landscape modifications that are taking place now, at this very moment, and that seem to invert the changes that were brought about during the early modern period or “classical age” (Section 7.8). As was already indicated, these developments will be studied from the point of view of a comparative epistemology, that is, a synchronic analysis of scientific and literary sources on coastal and fluvial landscapes. But in order to set the stage and define the proper context for such a comparative approach, I will summarize (in Section 7.2) the history of the landscape in broad outline and in a more diachronic manner.