In the article, Imperial Landscape, Mitchell brings up the idea of a “dark side” of landscapes. He alludes to the fact that landscapes are not all that accurate in portraying a natural scene and that there are always aspects of landscape that are misinterpreted. Mitchell writes that, “we say landscape is nature, not convention, in the same way we say landscape is ideal, not real estate.” And, “that is how we manage to call landscape the natural medium in the same breath that we admit that it is nothing but a bag of tricks, a bunch of conventions and stereotypes.” This makes me think about Allen Island and the way that it is described in Betsy Wyeth’s vision in the Theroux and Ralston articles. For Betsy, Allen island was a “blank canvas”. A canvas that she then physically altered by planting trees and other vegetation on, and one that she constructed buildings on. While being on the Island, the landscape felt very authentic to me and that everything there was natural, though after reading these articles, I question whether the landscape of Allen Island that I saw, is one that is authentic.