Introduction:The Landscape of Quebec: Nature and Culture, Space and Place - Literature and Painting in Quebec: From Imagery to Identity - page 3

mais bien plus dans leur opposition à la fois destructrice et créatrice.'
(165; For a culture acquires its identity not by a single element or sev-
eral of its elements aging, but much more by their opposition, which is
at once destructive and creative.) 5 Through its capacity to crystallize
and juxtapose such contrasting components proximately and simulta-
neously, the painted or written landscape becomes, like the land itself,
a lieu de mémoire (site of memory), 6 not only a landmark of Quebec heri-
tage but also, by its permanence, a major means of commemorating and
preserving it.
Space and Place
In addition to the nature / culture dyad, a pair of parallel terms that oc-
curs with great frequency in discussions of the landscape is space / place.
As the poet and critic Pierre Nepveu puts it: 'L'espace donne le vertige,
mais il permet aussi de se sauver, ou de croire que l'on se sauve (dans
les deux sens d'une fuite et d'un salut). Le lieu, lui, est éminemment
vulnérable: l'ici-maintenant constitue le projet à la fois le plus noble et
le plus fragile. L'habitation est chaleur, proximité des choses et des
corps, abri, séparation d'avec le continuum naturel. Mais en même
temps, elle est la possibilité d'entendre tous les bruits, même les plus
anciens que l'on croyait enfouis.' (204; Space gives one vertigo, but it
also enables one to save or believe in saving oneself (in the sense of both
escape and salvation). Place, on the other hand, is eminently vulnera-
ble: the here and now constitutes the project that is at once the most
noble and most fragile. Habitation is warmth, proximity of things and
bodies, shelter, separation from the natural continuum. But at the same
time it is the possibility of hearing all sounds, even the most ancient
ones that were believed buried.) Although Nepveu especially contrasts
exterior and interior environments, such as horizon and hearth, the out-
side landscape itself also accommodates the juxtaposition of space and
place. Similar to Nepveu, who distinguishes between the 'separation' of
place from the 'continuum' of nature, I tend to define 'place' quite tradi-
tionally as a point (whatever its extent) that defines itself against vast,
undifferentiated 'space': 'l'espace sans bornes' (unbounded space). 7 In
this sense, I see place as a relationship, constructed consciously, not un-
like culture, whereas space is a field experienced visually and viscerally,
as is nature. One can, to be sure, have a defined place, like a rock, that
remains natural, until it is named and assigned a cultural function, such
as a 'Council Rock' or a memorial (chapter two). One can also have an