Book excerpt: A lyrical atlas of the French landscape This book is the first English-language overview of the landscape photography of Thibaut Cuisset (born 1958), who over the last 30 years has explored issues around the environment and notions of territory. Cuisset has photographed the landscapes of many countries, yet he inevitably returns to the terrain of his native France and its infinite variety. With the acuity of the New Topographics photographers, Cuisset captures the French landscape without frills or nostalgia, and reveals it to be the result of historic layers and constant human interventions. The land is perpetually being shaped and transformed, and Cuisset's quiet lens and restrained virtuosity of color record and authenticate these sometimes subtle processes. The images in this book are tranquil, direct and often imbued with a sense of life (despite the absence of human figures). They form a lyrical atlas of the French landscape, and show just how fragile the land's state of balance and upheaval is.