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The Importance of Discerning Gazes
Why Dramatic Views Matter
I once had a friend who commented on my love for “gazes,” meaning my penchant for championing dramatic views and vantage points for reflection.
She was an artist, and we collaborated for a few years, often discussing how we understand places from memories of other places that, at first, seem to look the same.
Sometimes, our subjects were urban, but most often, we examined intersections of built areas with nature. It began in Scotland, then Paris, and included visiting the treetop walkway at London’s Kew Gardens.
I would try to explain my fascination with gazes. I used mindfulness analogies. I said that gazes should occur from strategic perches, where we look out over great distances, and reflect-not just about surrounding geographies-but also about where each of us might be headed over time.
Not too far from Kew Gardens today, I returned to my most favorite perch, the View from Richmond Hill. Long the inspiration of poets and artists, it is particularly known from J.M.W. Turner’s “ England: Richmond Hill on the Prince Regent’s Birthday” in the Tate Gallery. The view was…
