Il paesaggio come opera d’arte. Specificità e criticità nel rapporto tra esseri umani e natura

The combined work of nature and humans creates the landscape. As painters with their canvas, the two actors do not perform in a conventional way: their work is the product of the layering of changes through time. A critical interpretation of their complex creative interaction is presented in this paper, structured around three aspects of the landscape artwork’s life: aesthetic enjoyment, production, and preservation. To achieve an integrated and complex enhancement of the landscape, a contribution from context-related and local knowledge is therefore needed. Hence, understanding the peculiarities of landscape as an artwork is a prerequisite for preserving its values in the delicate balance between maintenance and transformation.