The idea of nature as a cultural construction has been discussed extensively in postmodern theory. Less attention, however, has been paid to the underlying motivations shaping the ideologies of nature, in particular the desire to submit to some larger order outside of oneself. Aspiring to the Landscape examines this persistent desire and how it is made manifest in contemporary landscape art.

Four installations of large-scale paintings by Canadian artists Eleanor Bond, Susan Feindel, Stephen Hutchings, and Wanda Koop are the focus of Petra Halkes's study. The works vary widely in style and iconography but are drawn together by the way they invite a reflection on the troubled relationship between culture and nature and our contradictory and simultaneous longing to conquer and to succumb to nature.

It is the tension between modern and postmodern interpretations of the subject of nature that makes the theory and the artwork discussed in Aspiring to the Landscape so important to contemporary Canadian culture.

Petra Halkes is an independent art writer, curator, teacher and artist who lives in Ottawa. Her book, Aspiring to the Landscape: On Painting and the Subject of Nature, was published by the University of Toronto Press in 2006.

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