After seeing the images in Alex MacLean’s The American Grid, I was amazed at the
stark contrast between the organized grid land and the untouched natural
features. While the grid lines are
perfectly straight, there is nothing completely uniform about the wildness of
nature. In my opinion, putting both grid
and nature together creates a beautiful landscape. This contrast of human and natural features
is also seen in The American Sublime
by David Nye. Tourists and commercial
vendors crowded monuments of great natural beauty, therefore making it
impossible to view them without a human influence. However, the varying definition of the
sublime allowed, in my opinion, a kind of harmony between people and nature. The idea of the sublime extended over not
only nature’s beauty such as Niagara Falls, but also human technological
advances such as the Erie Canal. To me
this displays the harmonization between advancements like making grids of the land and
nature’s beauty.
I agree with you that the contrast that the untouched land creates with the developed land is beautiful, but then I also disagree. I feel that a beautiful landscape is in the eye of the beholder and that in my eyes, a beautiful landscape must either consist of nature alone or developed land alone. Yet, in the eyes of a farmer, for example, these grids might be a gorgeous view. :)
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