By the late twentieth century, idyllic depictions of eighteenth-century manorial landscapes had become artistic expressions of dislocation. Western agricultural paradigms had shifted, as had the relationship between art and agriculture. The Cultivated Landscape uses over seventy illustrations to look at the development of Western agriculture from feudal times to the present.

Craig Pearson and Judith Nasby discuss the evolution of how we think about agriculture, its use of the land and impact on landscape, and how landscape has been portrayed historically in art. They also offer a wider discussion on the role that science and economics have played in agricultural development and the parallels to changes in art form.

The Cultivated Landscape ends with a discussion of the complex issues facing agriculture today, the need for greater connectivity between agriculture and our environment, and options for the future.

Craig Pearson is presidential advisor on international programs and professor of agricultural policy, the University of Guelph. He has been dean, Ontario Agricultural College, chief scientist with the Bureau of Rural Sciences in the Australian government, and past president of the Canadian Faculties of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine.

Craig Pearson's profile page

Judith Nasby is curator emerita of the Art Gallery of Guelph. During her career as the gallery's founding director/curator, she developed the museum's collection and established the Donald Forster Sculpture Park. Nasby has lectured and toured exhibitions on four continents and is an adjunct professor fine art at the University of Guelph. She is the author of Irene Avaalaaqiaq: Myth and Reality; Rolph Scarlett: Painter, Designer, Jeweller; The Making of a Museum; and is co-author with Craig Pearson of The Cultivated Landscape: An Exploration of Art and Agriculture. She has contributed to several books and exhibition catalogues and to a variety of periodicals, including Canadian Collector, Historic Guelph, and Inuit Art Quarterly. She lives in Guelph, Ontario.

Judith Nasby's profile page

"The impact of art in this book to visually enhance the documented history of agriculture is so vivid that I was able to imagine the sense of place that landscapes that no longer exist must have portrayed to those who lived and worked within them. While there are certainly many other books on the history of agriculture, no other that I have ever read has interwoven the topic with visual art in such an evocative manner. The Cultivated Landscape is utterly fascinating and on occasion evokes powerful parallels with Simon Schama's brilliant Landscape and Memory or even Kenneth Clark's Civilization." Richard Bawden, Systemic Development Institute, Sydney Australia "A broad, interesting, and well-written survey of farming practices from the Middle Ages to the present." Choice Magazine