Although nationalism, colonial expansion, but also thorough scientific shifts are generally considered a tied set of issues at the end of the 19th century in Europe, this contribution suggests that comparing landscape in both British and French travel narratives to Tibet allows one to emphasize noticeably different situations. British travellers openly address colonial and strategic concerns, whereas French travellers tend to describe landscape according to a specific scientific evolution. According to these premises, I can thus resume the questions that I address in this paper:
- Taking into account the fact that at this period European States consider landscape as participating in the construction of a national identity, what is the role of landscape when describing a foreign and previously unknown space? Is landscape only a projection of the travellers' own culture?
- Considering the general shift in scientific disciplines at the turn of the century, do the travel accounts give evidence of such changes in epistemological concerns and representational modalities and thereby contribute to the making of new representations of Tibet?
I argue that description of landscape in travel literature cannot be considered as a mere repetition of set representations but as a dynamic process involving a relationship between the traveller and the world.