The author of this chapter questions the orthodox thesis that emphasizes the predominance of realism in the early-modern landscape art of the Netherlands by articulating the symbolic/ideal aspects of various works of the period. This counter-thesis of interaction provides an opportunity to make the deeper case, on the basis of our epistemological position, that perception and imagination are interrelated poles along a continuum, that all works of art must be examined on the basis of the interrelation of actual/perceptual and imaginative elements, for the very selection of actual elements requires virtual embodiment, the choosing of alternatives, involving the imagination. And so the actual or “real” is already imbued with the imagination. Symbolic meanings cling to artistic realism as there can be no reduction to bare actuality. On the other hand, imagination depends on the perceptual/actual from which it draws. This discussion testifies to the interrelated geographies of imagination and perception—realist landscape art as an objectivation of what is seen, is hopelessly “tainted” with the imagination, as is the “actual” landscape.
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Gilboa, A. (2009). Symbolism and the Interaction of the Real and the Ideal: Scenery in Early-Modern Netherlandish Graphic Art. In: Backhaus, G., Murungi, J. (eds) Symbolic Landscapes. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-8703-5_12
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