I thought that the pairing of the two readings, Betsy Wyeth’s World is an Island in Maine and Introduction: iconography and landscape, offered up a lot to think about regarding the island’s “natural” and “unnatural” landscape. When reading about the construction of buildings on the island and how Betsy saw the landscape as a “blank canvas,” it made me think of our in class conversations on authenticity. Although we never really defined the exact nature of authenticity, it is still interesting to see how much of the islands current image was constructed by the Wyeths. I think there are a lot of similarities between Allen Island and the national park example that Daniels and Cosgrove bring up in regards to the island’s “authenticity.” The two write, “The quintessential modern experience of this new ‘book of nature’ is the stroll through the scenic wonders of a national park with a plastic earphone that responds to electronic triggers embedded at strategic locations along the path” (Daniels and Cosgrove, 6). The unnatural being placed within the natural realm takes away from how natural a space is, but I wonder whether or not this is important to feeling in touch with a particular landscape. As they state earlier in the essay, “The ‘higher landscape’ depended upon a humble submission of men to nature… and the application of the greatest skill and imagination in its representation” (Daniels and Cosgrove, 5). While the Wyeths didn’t necessarily submit to the powers of nature, they did use their creative skills and imagination to create their place, a powerful and meaningful thing to construct. After reading the two pieces, Allen Island seems to represent the blending of the natural world with people’s ability to creatively change landscape, and because they were effective in this “blending,” questioning the authenticity of the island is less important.