The representation of the vines: from symbol to spectacle

Landscapes such as its representation express values, beliefs and intentions of the individuals and the communities that produce them. The ideals of landscape are cultural believes capable to produce culture (Joliet, 1996). The representation can be defined as an organized process of information centered in the subjective interpretation of the individual, or group, to an exterior stimulation (Vala, 2000). The representation is also a form of power (Haraway, 1991, in Rose, 2001) in the measure creates it and spreads out images of a region and/or of an economic sector, it stages territorial images that can influence territorial planners and politicians (Debardieux et al., 2001; Thompson, in Hall, 1997). As an expression and a medium of communication of values, the representation of the vine and the wine is emblematic and millenarian, having a history marked for a culture of the pleasure and the power. It is expressed in a great number and variety of important symbolic artistic representations. However, the representation of the vineyard landscape is well more recent, has bedding in the myth of the field as paradigm of on values to the good, in opposition to the city, place of tension and conflict, in Renascence (Luginbühl, 1983). In the representations of the pre-industrial period, the agricultural spaces the vine is evoked as domain, a universe of wealth creation. The romantic ideals of 19th century and the emergency of industrialization mystify the field as tradition and work, a production place. In the contemporarily technological societies, the rural idea associates it leisure and contemplation, culture places (Briffaud, 2000). The vine is spectacle.
Under the iconographic point of view, the vine is an element of differentiation and notability. The art and the publicity are taking advantage and getting fruits in this advertising. In the scientific representations, in the oldest maps and the lesser scales, as well as in the air photograph or the image of satellites, it is possible to recognize the presence of the vine. In some cases due to the extension of its occupation, but over all considering the singular drawing of the alignment of the vine lines.