7 - Dolomite Close-Ups
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 June 2021
Summary
Abstract
Joseph Sanger Davies's Dolomite Strongholds offers as a distinct way to market the Dolomites as ‘prominent mountains’ in the Victorian period. The chapter reveals how increasingly haptic dimensions of mountaineering complicate the visual space created by a ‘modern’ mountaineer such as Sanger Davies. It explores conflicting and complementary views on the Dolomites offered by English mountaineers and their local guides, describing their encounter as an intimate exchange between two cultural world-views from the very surface of the rock itself. The relationship between Ralph King-Milbanke and his Dolomite guides renders the Dolomite landscape fluid in terms of intercultural exchange whereas Gertrude Bell's visits to the Dolomites offer up further clues on the portability of landscape through naming peaks.
Keywords: haptic vision, Alpine guides, transportable landscape, prominence, rock climbing, Joseph Sanger Davies
I felt the cool rock pressed to my cheek, and the contact turned the train of my thought from physical activity to mental reflection; and I realized my isolated position as a tiny insect perched midway up that vast wall, with half the sky cut off above, and an unthinkable abyss sinking far below.
− Joseph Sanger DaviesThis chapter exploits the idea of haptic vision in order to gain a better understanding of the interplay between representational and non-representational outlooks on the Dolomite landscape through a close-up perspective. The material used here transmits something of a ‘zoomed-in’ quality of vision, offering an account of a type of gaze that is increasingly detached from the panoramic notions of mountain ‘views’, ‘vistas’, or ‘scenery’, and is, instead, more at the scale of individual rocks and finger-tips. The close-up view also allows us to better appreciate the topographic and phenomenological affinities shared by the Dolomites and the Lake District, the ‘Northern English playground’ (Abraham, 1907, p. 181).
The first section of the chapter discusses Joseph Sanger Davies's attempt to market the Dolomites as ‘prominent mountains’. The second reveals how the visual space created by the ‘modern’ mountaineer is complicated by an increasingly tactile or, better, haptic dimension.
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- Topographic Memory and Victorian Travellers in the Dolomite MountainsPeaks of Venice, pp. 187 - 206Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2020