Unseen landscapes

Writing in 1938, the painter Paul Nash spoke of the 'unseen landscapes' of England. 'The landscapes I have in mind,' he wrote, 'are not part of the unseen world in a psychic sense, nor are they part of the Unconscious. They belong to the world that lies, visibly, about us. They are unseen merely because they are not perceived; only in that way can they be regarded as invisible.'

English wildness existed in the main as Nash's 'unseen landscapes': it was there, if carefully looked for, in a bend of a stream valley, in the undercut of a river bank, in copses and peat hags, hedgerows and quicksand pools. And it was there in the margins, interzones and rough cusps of the country; quarry rim, derelict factory and motorway verge.

from The Wild Places by Robert Macfarlane