Inscape, in

visual art The visual arts are art forms such as painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics, photography, video, filmmaking, design, crafts and architecture. Many artistic disciplines such as performing arts, conceptual art, and textile arts ...

, is a term especially associated with certain works of

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the eas ...

an artist Roberto Matta, but it is also used in other senses within the

visual arts The visual arts are art forms such as painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics, photography, video, filmmaking, design, crafts and architecture. Many artistic disciplines such as performing arts, conceptual art, and textile art ...

. Though the term ''inscape'' has been applied to stylistically diverse artworks, it usually conveys some notion of representing the artist's psyche as a kind of interior

landscape A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or man-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. A landscape includes the ...

. The word ''inscape'' can therefore be read as a kind of

portmanteau A portmanteau word, or portmanteau (, ) is a blend of wordsBoston College Boston College (BC) is a private Jesuit research university in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. Founded in 1863, the university has more than 9,300 full-time undergraduates and nearly 5,000 graduate students. Although Boston College is classified ...

(see external link below), Matta's use of the term ''inscape'' for a series of

-like abstract or surrealist

painting Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and a ...

s reflects "the psychoanalytic view of the mind as a three-dimensional space: the 'inscape'." The 'inscape' concept is particularly apt for Matta's works of the late 1930s. As

Dawn Adès Josephine Dawn Adès, (''née'' Tylden-Pattenson; born 6 May 1943), also known as Dawn Adès, is a British art historian and academic. She is professor emeritus of art history and theory at the University of Essex. Early life and education A ...

(p. 233) writes, "A series of brilliant oil paintings done during the years of his atta'sfirst association with the Surrealists explore visual metaphors for the mental landscape." And Valerie Fletcher, in ''Crosscurrents of Modernism'' (p. 241), writes that during this time Matta "created with startling mastery the paintings he called 'inscapes' or 'psychological morphologies.' " See also Miriam Basilio's essay, "

Wifredo Lam Wifredo Óscar de la Concepción Lam y Castilla (; December 8, 1902 – September 11, 1982), better known as Wifredo Lam, was a Cuban artist who sought to portray and revive the enduring Afro-Cuban spirit and culture. Inspired by and in conta ...

's 'The Jungle' and Matta's 'Inscapes' ". The term ''inscape'' was later taken up by the leading Australian surrealist

James Gleeson James Timothy Gleeson (21 November 1915 – 20 October 2008) was an Australian artist. He served on the board of the National Gallery of Australia. Early life Gleeson was born in the Sydney district of Hornsby in 1915 and attended East Sy ...

, American

abstract art Abstract art uses visual language of shape, form, color and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world. Western art had been, from the Renaissance up to the middle of the 1 ...

ists such as James Brooks,

Jane Frank Jane Schenthal Frank (born Jane Babette Schenthal) (July 25, 1918 – May 31, 1986) was an American multidisciplinary artist, known as a painter, sculptor, mixed media artist, illustrator, and textile artist. Her landscape-like, mixed-media ab ...

, and Mary Frank (no relation), and even a group of British

fantasy art Fantastic art is a broad and loosely defined art genre. It is not restricted to a specific school of artists, geographical location or historical period. It can be characterised by subject matter – which portrays non-realistic, mystical, my ...

ists founded by Brigid Marlin in 1961 and calling themselves the 'Inscape Group.' (The latter group may have had in mind another sense of the word ' inscape', associated with the British poet Gerard Manley Hopkins. See the article titled simply ' inscape' for more information on this.) More recently, in a 1998 review of a Mary Frank exhibition in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

(cited below), Carol Diehl writes, "Titled 'Inscapes', the

s are landscapes of the

soul In many religious and philosophical traditions, there is a belief that a soul is "the immaterial aspect or essence of a human being". Etymology The Modern English noun '' soul'' is derived from Old English ''sāwol, sāwel''. The earliest att ...

...." Also clearly referring to the psychoanalytical meaning of the word as described by Prof. Cernuschi and others above, the leading journal of art therapy was formerly called simply ''Inscape''. The journal is now called ''International journal of art therapy : Inscape.'' (This is not to be confused with the ''Inscape'' magazine produced by Brigid Marlin's Society for Art of Imagination.)

Architectural interiors as 'inscapes'

The word "inscape" is sometimes used, perhaps with a bit of poetic license, to refer to the domain of

interior design Interior design is the art and science of enhancing the interior of a building to achieve a healthier and more aesthetically pleasing environment for the people using the space. An interior designer is someone who plans, researches, coordin ...

, suggesting that the interior of a house or building is a kind of interior (or indoor) landscape, a counterpart to the landscape surrounding the structure. This is the sense suggested by the name of the

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring coun ...

n interior design school Inscape Design College, which see. It could be, however, that this use of the term is intended as a double-entendre, evoking those other meanings of "inscape".

References

Books

*Ades, Dawn. ''Art in

Latin America Latin America or * french: Amérique Latine, link=no * ht, Amerik Latin, link=no * pt, América Latina, link=no, name=a, sometimes referred to as LatAm is a large cultural region in the Americas where Romance languages — languages derived ...

'' (New Haven :

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the w ...

Press, 1989) *Basilio, Miriam; Museo del Barrio.; Museum of Modern Art (New York, N.Y.). ''Latin American & Caribbean art : MoMA at El Museo'' (New York : El Museo del Barrio and the Museum of Modern Art : Distributed by Distributed Art Publishers, 2004) , (see Miriam Basilio's essay, "Wifredo Lam's The Jungle and Matta's 'Inscapes' ") *Casson Hugh. M. ''Inscape: The design of interiors'' Architectural Press. London. 1968, / *Fletcher, Valerie J; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. ''Crosscurrents of modernism : four Latin American pioneers : Diego Rivera, Joaquín Torres-García, Wifredo Lam, Matta = Intercambios del modernismo : cuatro precursores latinoamericanos : Diego Rivera, Joaquín Torres-García, Wifredo Lam, Matta'' (Washington, D.C. : Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in association with the

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Found ...

Press, 1992), ;

Article

* Sandler, Irving H.br>"James Brooks and the abstract inscape"
''ARTnews'' (New York : Art Foundation, 1963) OCLC: 54034429

External links

{{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061107093903/http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/cas/artmuseum/exhibitions/archive/matta/catalogue.html , date=2006-11-07
Review article by Carol Diehl: "Mary Frank at D.C. Moore - New York, New York", ''Art in America'', Nov. 1998Information on ''International journal of art therapy : Inscape''
at psychotherapyarena.com Painting Visual arts genres Landscape art by type