Flaws of the Landscape Model

Carlson dismisses the landscape model, but for different reasons than the object model.  While the object model was flawed to the point of a dichotomic dilemma (don't use it, or use it, and transfer said nature to artworld) , the landscape model simply does not qualify under the correct point of aspection, or fairly translate the natural landscape.

The landscape model, unlike the object model, is a representative style of art, the kind that Plato would consider to be a "mirror held up to nature."  While some of the most famous landscape paintings are indeed of the majestic natural wonders of earth, Carlson elaborates on how this attempt to capture nature on a painting is not fair to nature, nor is observing one a good way at all to appreciate natural landscape.

"The model requires us to view the environment as if it were a static representation which is essentially "two dimensional."  It requires the reduction of the environment to a scene or view.  But what must be kept in mind is that the environment is not a scene, not a representation, not static and not two dimensional.  The point is that the model requires the appreciation of the environment not as what it is and with the qualities it has, but rather as something which it is not and with qualities it does not have" (Carlson, 542).

Carlson concludes that the landscape model is instructive, as paintings can tell one a great deal about the details and functions of nature, but is is innapropriate to view the natural environment in this way.  He even goes as far as to question the ethics of viewing nature in this way, although he stipulates the ethics of viewing natural environment in a less scathing manner.  Carlson states that one usually thinks of landscape as a background.  Even the word "landscape" today, in some cases, is shorthand for a background, on a powerpoint, or laptop.  Like Dewey, Carlson believes that this landscape that is usually treated as unobtrusive background must be viewed as obtrusive foreground in order to be fully appreciated.