The Romantic View
No~ 2 · S P R I N G 2 0 1 6
{ Spring Snow }
£10
Karl Marx: ‘Now, regarding my work, I will tell you the plain truth about it. There are three more chapters to be written to complete the theoretical part (the first three books). Then there is still the fourth book, the historicalliterary one, to be written, which will, comparatively speaking, be the easiest part for me, since all the problems have been resolved in the first three books, so that this last one is more by way of repetition in historical form. But I cannot bring myself to send anything off until I have the whole thing in front of me. Whatever shortcomings they may have, the advantage of my writings is that they are an artistic whole, and this can only be achieved through my practice of never having things printed until I have them in front of me in their entirety. This is impossible with Jacob Grimm’s method which is in general better with writings that have no dialectical structure.’ Letter sent from London [31 July 1865], to Engels in Manchester Marx/Engels Collected Works [MECW], Vol. 42, p.172. First published in Der Briefwechsel Zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, 1913.
‘Truly free labour, e.g., composition, is damned serious at the same time, it is the most intensive exertion. The work of material production can acquire this character only by [1] having its social character affirmed and [2] having a scientific character and being universal labour, the exertion of a man not as a tamed natural force, but as a subject which appears in the process of production not only in its natural form and development as part of nature, but as an activity regulating all natural forces. ’ Grundrisse [Foundations] of the Critique of Political Economy [Rough Draft] Notebook VI, the chapter on capital, written 1857–61, published in German 1939–41 Grundrisse, Penguin Books in association with the New Left Review, 1973, translated by Martin Nicolaus
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front cover
left
Claude Monet, Adolphe Monet in the Garden of Le Coteau
Claude Monet, Water Lilies (Agapanthus) [c.1915–26],
at Sainte-Adresse [1867], oil on canvas, 83 × 101 cm,
oil on canvas, 201 × 426 cm, The Cleveland Museum of Art,
courtesy Larry Ellison Collection
John L. Severance Fund and an anonymous gift 1960.81
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The Roman tic View Issue No.2 Spring 2016 Published by Mary Mc Caughey
First day of Spring, 22 March, 2016 Dear Reader,
mary@theromanticview.com Design & production by Tim Barnes herechickychicky.com Printed in London by
I am delighted to welcome you to the second issue of The Romantic View — Spring 2016 — and what a truly long and beautiful spring we have been graced with this year! After some initial confusion from the mild winter, and a cooler spring, the weather really helped to extend the display of spring bulbs. In a letter sent from Cologne in 1843 to his friend Arnold Ruge, Karl Marx writes,
Art Quarters Press
‘Whatever is necessary adapts itself. Although I do not underestimate the obstacles, therefore, I have no doubt that they can be overcome. It is becoming clearer every day that independent, thinking people must seek out a new centre. I am convinced that our plan would satisfy a real need and real needs must be satisfied in reality. I shall have no doubts once we begin in earnest.’ Spring is about beginnings. G.W.F. Hegel begins his introduction to The Science of Logic by pointing out that it can indeed seem as if it were impossible to make a beginning at all:
The Romantic View was founded by Mary Mc Caughey in 2015 as a reflective quarterly, produced and distributed at the end of each season. An annual subscription for four issues is £40 post-free to anywhere in the world. We are grateful for donations of any amount.
‘We can assume nothing, and assert nothing dogmatically; nor can we accept the assertions and assumptions of others. And yet me must make a beginning: and a beginning, as primary and underived, makes an assumption, or rather is an assumption. It seems as if it were impossible to make a beginning at all.’
Contributions provide unrestricted operating support, helping make possible the seasonal publication of The Romantic View and a related
‘Romanticism and modern art are one and the same thing,’ wrote the French poet Charles Baudelaire in 1846.
programme of events promoting the appreciation of the art and beauty of our world.
Romanticism properly begins as a universal movement around the middle of the nineteenth century in
Please email mary@theromanticview.com to subscribe or donate.
France but the great Romantic movement begins in England in the middle of the eighteenth century, one
St. James’s Park, London [22 March 2016]
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hundred years before, expressing itself above all in poetry and in the English garden — the great symbol of
Spring is about beginnings and fluttering spring blossom but also it is the end of winter. Very soon the
the age. The result of English conditions, the birth of romanticism mirrors the ascent of England in poli-
greatest and most international scholarly work of its kind ever to be produced, the MEGA — i.e. the
tics, arts and the sciences, an ascent that also gives the Enlightenment in France its decisive impulse. The
complete writings of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels — will be completed. These works started to come
French writers of the period see in English institutions the quintessence of progress and build up a legend
together as ‘an artistic whole’ through Karl Marx’s own labour, writing at his desk number seven in the
around English liberalism (a legend which only partly corresponds to reality).
British Library from 1850, when he obtained a member’s card. Just before the first world war, the émigré
Romanticism in England established the idea of the artistic genius with his originality and subjectivism
Russian Marxist scholar David Riazanov returned to the British Library, where he dedicated himself to the
and for the first time the ideal of the creative personality arises.
collection and publication of the collected writings of Marx and Engels. In 1921 he established the MarxEngels Institute in Moscow and from here, in 1926 the Marx-Engels-Gesamtausgabe [MEGA], was launched
Post-French Revolution romanticism reflects a new outlook on life and the world and, above all, it creates a
and projected to be completed in 36 volumes. David Riazanov acquired, prepared and published for the first
new interpretation of the idea of artistic freedom. This freedom is no longer the privilege of the genius, but
time previously unknown writings of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels including The German Ideology, and
the birthright of every artist and every gifted individual. The birth of Romanticism in England allowed only
sections of The Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844, The Critique of Hegel’s ‘Philosophy of Right’
the genius to deviate from the rules but romanticism proper denies the validity of objective rules of any
and Dialectics of Nature. Riazanov also edited the works of other authors including Diderot, Feuerbach, and
kind. All individual expression is unique, irreplaceable and bears its own laws and standards within itself;
Hegel.
this insight is the great insight of the French Revolution for art. The Romantic movement now becomes a
war of liberation not only against academies, churches, courts, patrons, amateurs, critics and masters, but
1989 Amsterdam’s respected International Institute of Social History [IISG], which also held most of the
against the very principle of tradition, authority and rule. The struggle is unthinkable without the intellec-
original manuscripts, was instrumental in setting up an International Marx Engels Foundation [IMES], a
tual atmosphere created by the Revolution. It owes both its initiation and its influence to the Revolution.
politically independent organization that assumed scientific responsibility for the project. The scope of
The whole of modern art is to a certain degree the result of this romantic fight for freedom.
the work amounts to 114 volumes — 55 of which have been published to date — and is being produced by
MEGA resumed in Moscow and (East-) Berlin during the 1960s. After the Berlin Wall came down in
The Revolution had demonstrated that no human institution is unalterable; any idea imposed on the
teams of scholars from Germany, Russia, France, the Netherlands, Austria, the USA, and Japan and is also
artist had lost its claim to represent a higher norm, and all compulsion only awakened his doubts and suspi-
sponsored by the European Union. From the outset IMES has endeavoured to ensure that the project is
cion. The principles of order and discipline lost their stimulating influence and the liberal idea became
not constrained by any partisan political allegiances. It is being published by the 260 year old independent
from now on-yes, indeed, only from now on-a source of artistic inspiration.
academic publishing company De Gruyter which is headquartered in Berlin, with offices in Basel, Beijing,
From now on the state loses all influence on art and the artist. Great artists from Matisse to Renoir
Boston and Munich.
almost starve waiting for the support of private individuals and patrons to support them. In spite of the
If we as people adapt ourselves to meeting our real needs maybe this great work, the capital of many
prizes, gifts and distinctions which he bestowed on them, Napoleon was unable to spur on his artists and
people’s labour is ready now because we need it now.
writers to achieve anything of importance. Art ceases to be a social activity guided by objective and conventional criteria, and becomes an activity of self-expression creating its own standards; it becomes in a word, the medium through which single individuals speaks to single individuals. As soon as the artist begins to paint, to compose or to write, he is and feels alone.
HORATIO
‘If your mind dislike anything, obey it. I will forestall their repair hither and say you are not fit.’
As Arnold Hauser writes: HAMLET
‘Romanticism was not merely a universal European movement, seizing one nation after another and creating
‘Not a whit. We defy augury. There’s a special providence in the fall of
a universal literary language which was finally as intelligible in Russia and Poland as in England or France
a sparrow. If it be now, ’tis not to come. If it be not to come, it will be now.
but has remained a lasting factor in the development of art. There is, in fact, no product of modern art, no
If it be not now, yet it will come — the readiness is all. Since no man of
emotional impulse, no impression or mood of the modern man, which does not owe its delicacy and variety
aught he leaves knows, what is’t to leave betimes? Let be. ’
to the sensitiveness which developed out of romanticism. ‘Romanticism created a decisive turning point in the history of the human mind. Today we are living in a new
Mary Mc Caughey
golden age for scholarship. Our vast global wealth, the rapid developments in science, medicine, arts and technology and global interconnectedness between the brightest and the best of us, in our respective fields and across different fields of endeavor, creates real needs for knowledge and for overcoming obstacles in our work and in our free expression as individual human beings.’ Arnold Hauser, The Social History of Art, Vol. 2, translated in collaboration
William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark,
with the author by Stanley Godman, Routledge and Kegan Paul [1951]
Act V, Scene 2 [c.1599–1602]
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Spring Snow — ‘a novel with the perfect beauty of a Japanese garden... a classic of Japanese Literature.’ Chicago Sun Times
‘That peculiar charm of the inaccessible.’
Now as she stood talking with the Prince,
very tall trees stood at graceful intervals in the
Kiyoaki watched her profile. Her face was lit with
foreground, each placed so as to complement the
a faint glow from the setting sun, and as he looked
overall harmony of the landscape. It was impos-
on from the other side of the group, he thought of
sible to tell what kind they were, but their heavy
a crystal sparking far away, the faint note of a koto,
top branches seemed to bend in the wind with a
a distant mountain valley — all alike imbued with
tragic grandeur. The discreet expanse of plains
that peculiar charm of the inaccessible. As the
glowed faintly; this side of the mountains, the
background of trees and sky gradually darkened,
vegetation lay flat and desolate. At the corner
moreover, her profile became still more brightly
of the picture, minute stood the plain wooden
etched, like Mount Fuji’s silhouette, caught by the
cenotaph and the altar with flowers lying on
setting sun.
it, its white cloth twisted by the wind. For the *
S P R I NG
SNOW
rest you saw nothing but soldiers, thousands of
Two members of the Matsugae family, Kikoaki’s
them. In the foreground, they were turned away
uncles, had been killed. His grandmother still
from the camera to reveal the white sunshields
received a pension from the government, thanks
hanging from their caps and the diagonal leather
to these two sons she had lost, but she never used
straps across their backs. They had not formed in
the money; she left the envelopes unopened on
neat ranks, but were clustered in groups, heads
the hedge of the household shrine. Perhaps that
drooping. A mere handful in the lower left hand
was why the photograph which impressed Kiyoaki
corner had half-turned their dark faces towards
most out of the entire collection of war photo-
the camera, like figures in a Renaissance painting.
graphs in the house was one entitled Vicinity of
Further behind them, a host of soldiers stretched
Tokuri Temple: Memorial Services for the War Dead
away in an immense semicircle to the ends of the
and dated 26 June 1904, the thirty-seventh year
plain, so many men that it was impossible to tell
of the Meiji era. This photograph, printed in sepia
one from another, and more were grouped far
ink, was quite unlike the usual cluttered mementos
away among the trees.
of the war. It had been composed with an artist’s
The figures of these soldiers, in both foreground
He was daydreaming, and his thoughts, moving
two facts seemed to be a strange twist of fortune,
eye for structure: it really made it seem as if the
and rear were bathed in the strange half-light that
like the sea, gradually turned from the rhythm of
something to seize and cling to in time of danger.
thousands of soldiers who were present were
outlined leggings and boots and picked out the
the waves to that of the long, slow passage of time,
And indeed it was Satoka, unmistakable in her
arranged deliberately. Like figures in a painting, to
curves of bent shoulders and the napes of necks.
and hence to the inevitably of growing old — and
long-sleeved kimono as she came along the path
focus the entire attention of the viewer on the tall
The light charged the entire picture with an inde-
he suddenly caught his breadth. He has never
beside the pond toward the main house with her
cenotaph of unpainted wood in their midst.
scribable sense of grief.
looked forward to the wisdom and other vaunted
parents beside her. Even at a distance, Kiyoaki
In the distance, mountains sloped gently in
From these men, there emanated a tangible
benefits of old age. Would he be able to die young —
could see that the kimono was a beautiful cher-
the haze, rising in easy stages to the left of the
emotion that broke in a wave against the small
and if possible free of all pain? A graceful death —
ry-blossom pink, its pattern reminiscent of the
picture, away from the broad plain at their foot;
white altar, the flowers, the cenotaph in their
as a richly patterned kimono, thrown carelessly
fresh green profusion of a spring meadow. As she
to the right, they merged in the distance with
midst. From the enormous mass stretching to
across a polished table, slides unobtrusively sown
turned her head momentarily, pointing out the
scattered clumps of trees, vanishing into the
the edge of the plain, a single thought, beyond
into the darkness of the floor beneath. A death
island, he caught a glimpse of her profile, the deli-
yellow dust of the horizon. And here, instead
all power of human expression, bore down like a
marked by elegance.
cate pallor of her cheek set off by the shining black
of mountains, there was a row of tres growing
great, heavy ring of iron on the centre. Both its age
The thought of dying suddenly spurred him
hair ... At this moment he could tell himself without
taller as the eye moved to the right; a yellow
and its sepia ink tinged the photograph with an
with a desire to see Satoko, if only for a moment.
a qualm: ‘I love her. I’m madly in love with her.’
sky showed through the gape between them. Six
atmosphere of infinite poignance.
He telephoned Tadeshina and then hurriedly left
They had none of Satoka’s delicate coordina-
the house. There was no doubt that Satoko was
tion. A gift that comes only with a sure sense of
full of life and beauty, as he himself was — these
elegance.
from
Yukio Mishima, Spring Snow [1969]
Spring Snow [春の雪 / Haru no Yuki] is the first novel in Yukio Mishima’s Sea of Fertility tetralogy It was published serially by Shincho- [1965–67] and then in book form [1969] Translation by Michael Gallagher published by Vintage [2000], © Alfred A. Knopf, Inc [1972]
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DELACROIX
‘Inspiration is getting to our studies at 9 am.’
Delacroix and the Rise of Modern Art, National Gallery, London, 17 February – 22 May 2016 Organised by the Minneapolis Institute of Art and the National Gallery, London Exhibition curators: Christopher Riopelle, Curator of Post-1800 Paintings, National Gallery, London; Patrick Noon, Patrick and Aimee Butler Chair of Paintings at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. Catalogue: Patrick Noon and Christopher Riopelle Delacroix and the Rise of Modern Art, published by National Gallery Company, in association with Minneapolis Institute of Art, distributed by Yale University Press
Eugène Delacroix, Self Portrait [c. 1837], oil on canvas, 55 × 65 cm,
Quotes from the The Journal of Eugène Delacroix,
photo by Jean-Gilles Berizzi, © RMN-Grand Palais (Musée du Louvre)
translated by Walter Pach, Covici-Friede, New York [1937]
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Henri Matisse: ‘Since I didn’t travel very much, it didn’t take many days to stock my memory with sights that I can still bring clearly to mind. During a longer stay, you get absolutely nothing out of it for days and days and days. But there’s this, too, that boredom in a new country has at least the merit of allowing the spirit of the country to sink in unconsciously. It’s quite possible that on excursions like that, the things that strike you are ones that relate to images you already know, images familiar from reading and photography. Whereas during a longer stay, when you’ve time to get bored, new things enter your head, things that you’re not aware of at the time, but in the course they make up a whole idea of the country. ‘Once the rain had fallen, out of that wet earth there sprang quite marvelous bulb-shaped flowers and greenery. And all the hills that surround Tangiers, which were as tawny as a lion’s skin before, became the most extraordinary green, with rather tormented skies, as in Delacroix’s paintings. In short, Delacroix’s pictures are an accurate representation of the Moroccan landscape from Tangiers to Tetuan-the part planted with trees. I stayed in Tangiers until April, working there, still seeking the same goal, which basically was trying to find myself through various motifs. And I came back in spring to Issy-les-Moulineaux. I found my garden terribly cramped, quite the opposite of what I had imagined in Morocco. I thought I couldn’t any longer take an interest in the little things around the outskirts of Paris, but I found the lawn in front of the house so abundant and the flowers so close at hand that I really felt the difference between the two countries. ‘The following year I went to Morocco again, but to make a proper season of it, I thought, ‘I’ll go in October’ But in October — in fact until January — it was a completely unfamiliar Morocco: all yellow, the earth tawny coloured, the grass burned up by the summer surf. I had to endure the torrential rains again before rediscovering the springtime Morocco that had so enchanted me the year before. I worked in the Casbah, in an Arab café overlooking the whole roadstead, and from there I saw the entire landscape that Delacroix had copied to put in his The Capture of Constantinople. I made a very exact drawing of it. I can’t claim to have discovered this. I was told about it. Delacroix’s landscape in The Capture of Constantinople is the view from the Casbah with the hills around Tangiers as background. ‘One curious memory comes back to me about a trip from Tangiers to Tetuan. At the time, it was possible only on muleback. We left from the Hotel des France, four or five of us, all guests at the hotel, each perched on a mule with a wide flat Arab saddle, one of those saddles you think you’ll be able to hold out forty-eight hours on. We left very early, accompanied by two Arabs, one a guide and the other looking after food. Leaving Tangiers, we went down into a beautiful valley that was very wide and full of all kinds of grass and greenery, tall grass that came up to the mules’ necks, with big daisies and buttercups; we went through this sort of sea of flowers as though no one had ever been that way before. None of it trodden down: we were entering a pure, virginal field of grasses while the morning was at its most beautiful. It was exquisite. There were hills all around us and at that point I thought to myself: ‘But I’ve already seen this! I know this!’ It wasn’t new to me;
‘Always, at the back of your soul, there is something that says to you, “Mortal, drawn from eternal life for a short time, think how precious these moments are.” ’
it came back to me afterward that what I saw there had been described by Loti. There’s a description of these valleys by Loti ... I can tell you, at that moment, I had the most extraordinary respect for Loti asa painter. Later I discovered the description, in Roman d’un Spahi. It was precisely the landscape around Tangiers.’
from
Chatting with Matisse: the Lost 1941 Interview, edited by Serge Guilbaut, Tate Publishing [2013]
Eugène Delacroix, Convulsionists of Tangier [1837–38], oil on canvas, 98 × 131 cm, © The Minneapolis Institute of Art, bequest of J. Jerome Hill 73.42.3
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T H E GAR D EN O F EDEN
In its instinctive and natural stage, spiritual life wears the garb of innocence and confiding simplicity; but the very essence of spirit implies the absorption of this immediate condition in something higher.
from
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences, extract from Part One II: ‘Preliminary Notion’ [1830 edition]
15
When we compare the different forms of ascer-
we find, as was already said, that it exemplifies the
taining truth with one another, the first of them,
universal bearings of knowledge upon the spiritual
immediate knowledge, may perhaps seem the
life. In its instinctive and natural stage, spiritual
finest, noblest, and most appropriate. It includes
life wears the garb of innocence and confiding
everything which the moralists term innocence as
simplicity; but the very essence of spirit implies
well as religious feeling, simple trust, love, fidelity,
the absorption
and natural faith. The two other forms, first reflec-
of this immediate condition in something higher.
tive, and secondly philosophical cognition, must
The spiritual is distinguished from the natural,
leave that unsought natural harmony behind. And
and more especially from the animal, life, in the
so far as they have this in common, the methods
circumstance that it does not continue a mere
which claim to apprehend the truth by thought
stream of tendency, but sunders itself to self-re-
may naturally be regarded as part and parcel of the
alisation. But this position of severed life has in
pride which leads man to trust to his own powers
its turn to be suppressed, and the spirit has by its
for a knowledge of the truth. Such a position
own act to win its way to concord again. The final
involves a thorough-going disruption, and, viewed
concord then is spiritual; that is, the principle of
in that light, might be regarded as the source of
restoration is found in thought, and thought only.
all evil and wickedness — the original transgres-
The hand that inflicts the wound is also
sion. Apparently therefore the only way of being
the hand which heals it.
reconciled and restored to peace is to surrender all
claims to think or know.
first human beings, the types of humanity, were
We are told in our story that Adam and Eve, the
This lapse from natural unity has not escaped
placed in a garden, where grew a tree of life and
notice, and nations from the earliest times have
a tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God, it
asked the meaning of the wonderful division of
is said, had forbidden them to eat of the fruit of
the spirit against itself. No such inward disunion is
this latter tree: of the tree of life for the present
found in nature: natural things do nothing wicked.
nothing further is said. These words evidently
*
assume that man is not intended to seek knowl-
The Mosaic legend of the Fall of Man has preserved
edge, and ought to remain in the state of innocence.
an ancient picture representing the origin and
Other meditative races, it may be remarked, have
consequences of this disunion. The incidents of
held the same belief that the primitive state of
the legend form the basis of an essential article of
mankind was one of innocence and harmony. Now
the creed, the doctrine of original sin in man and
all this is to a certain extent correct. The disunion
his consequent need of succour . It may be well at
that appears throughout humanity is not a condi-
the commencement of logic to examine the story
tion to rest in. But it is a mistake to regard the
which treats of the origin and the bearings of the
natural and immediate harmony as the right state.
very knowledge which logic has to discuss. For,
The mind is not mere instinct: on the contrary, it
though philosophy must not allow herself to be
essentially involves the tendency to reasoning
overawed by religion, or accept the
and meditation. Childlike innocence no doubt
position of existence on sufferance, she cannot
has in it something fascinating and attractive:
afford to neglect these popular conceptions. The
but only because it reminds us of what the spirit
tales and allegories of religion, which have enjoyed
must win for itself. The harmoniousness of child-
for thousands of years the veneration of nations,
hood is a gift from the hand of nature: the second
are not to be set aside as antiquated even now.
harmony must spring from the labour and culture
Upon a closer inspection of the story of the Fall
of the spirit. And so the words of Christ, ‘Except
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Next comes the Curse, as it is called, which God
The theological doctrine of original sin is a
pronounced upon man. The prominent point in
profound truth; but modern enlightenment prefers
that curse turns chiefly on the contrast between
to believe that man is naturally good, and that he
man and nature. Man must work in the sweat of
acts right so long as he continues true to nature.
his brow: and woman bring forth in sorrow. As to
The hour when man leaves the path of mere
work, if it is the result of the disunion, it is also the
natural being marks the difference between him,
victory over it. The beasts have nothing more to
a self-conscious agent, and the natural world. But
do but to pick up the materials required to satisfy
this schism, though it forms a necessary element
their wants: man on the contrary can only satisfy
in the very notion of spirit, is not the final goal of
his wants by himself producing and transforming
man. It is to this state of inward breach that the
the necessary means. Thus even in these outside
whole finite action of thought and will belongs. In
things man is dealing with himself.
that finite sphere man pursues ends of his own and
The story does not close with the expulsion
draws from himself the material of his conduct.
from Paradise. We are further told, God said,
While he pursues these aims to the uttermost,
‘Behold Adam is become as one of us, to know
while his knowledge and his will seek himself, his
good and evil.’ Knowledge is now spoken of as
own narrow self apart from the universal, he is
divine, and not, as before, as something wrong
evil; and his evil is to be subjective. We seem at
and forbidden. Such words contain a confutation
first to have a double evil here: but both are really
of the idle talk that philosophy pertains only to
the same. Man in so far as he is spirit is not the
the finitude of the mind. Philosophy is knowledge,
creature of nature: and when he behaves as such,
and it is through knowledge that man first real-
and follows the cravings of appetite, he wills to
ises his original vocation, to be the image of God.
be so. The natural wickedness of man is therefore
When the record adds that God drove men out of
unlike the natural life of animals. A mere natural
the garden of Eden to prevent their eating of the
life may be more exactly defined by saying that the
tree of life, it only means that on his natural side
natural man as such is an individual: for nature in
certainly man is finite and mortal, but in knowl-
every part is in the bonds of individualism. Thus
edge infinite.
when man wills to be a creature of nature, he wills *
in the same degree to be an individual simply. Yet
We all know the theological dogma that man’s
against such impulsive and appetitive action, due
nature is evil, tainted with what is called Original
to the individualism of nature, there also steps in
Sin. Now while we accept the dogma, we must
the law or general principle. This law may either
ye become as little children’, etc., are very far from
participates when he breaks with the unity of his
telling us that we must always remain children.
instinctive being and eats of the forbidden fruit.
give up the setting of incident which represents
be an external force, or have the form of divine
Again, we find in the narrative of Moses that
The first reflection of awakened consciousness
original sin as consequent upon an accidental act
authority. So long as he continues in his natural
the occasion which led man to leave his natural
in men told them that they were naked. This is a
of the first man. For the very notion of spirit is
state, man is in bondage to the law.
unity is attributed to solicitation from without.
naive and profound trait. For the sense of shame
enough to show that man is evil by nature, and
The serpent was the tempter. But the truth is,
bears evidence to the separation of man from his
it is an error to imagine that he could ever be
of man, there are social or benevolent inclinations,
that the step into opposition, the awakening of
natural and sensuous life. The beasts never get
otherwise. To such extent as man is and acts like
love, sympathy, and others, reaching beyond his
consciousness, follows from the very nature of
so far as this separation, and they feel no shame.
a creature of nature, his whole behaviour is what
selfish isolation. But so long as these tendencies
man; and the same history repeats itself in every
And it is in the human feeling of shame that we
it ought not to be. For the spirit it is a duty to be
are instinctive, their virtual universality of scope
son of Adam. The serpent represents likeness to
are to seek the spiritual and moral origin of dress,
free, and to realise itself by its own act. Nature
and purport is vitiated by the subjective form
God as consisting in the knowledge of good and
compared with which the merely physical need is
is for man only the starting-point which he has
which always allows free play to self-seeking and
evil: and it is just this knowledge in which man
a secondary matter.
to transform.
random action.
v
Isabella Plantation, Richmond, London [Wednesday 4 May 2016], photo by Mary Mc Caughey
It is true that among the instincts and affections
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SEVEN GARDENS IN SPRING England, 2016 Photographs by Mary McCaughey
i
Prunus ‘Matsumae Hanagurame’ Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Saturday 30 April 2016
from
Yukio Mishima, Spring Snow [1969]
20
‘What moves men of genius, or tather what inspires their work, is not new ideas, but their obsession with the idea that what has already been said is still not enough.’ Eugène Delacroix
21
‘There can be nowhere more beautiful than Sissinghurst in the first few weeks of May, and I couldn’t stop myself wanting to be in the garden: mowing the lawns at dawn or enjoying the ethereal beauty of the White Garden at dusk’, Troy tells The English Garden magazine. ‘We must garden with a freedom and ease that comes with a deep absorption and close affinity with the place. It is only in this way that the style and spirit of the garden will be maintained, refined, enriched and enhanced. Therefore, I make no excuses for focusing my attention over the past few months on trying to understand the distinctiveness of Sissinghurst and the characters of its creators, Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson: their philosophy, taste, motives, interests, gardening style, prejudices, constraints and ideas.’ Vita and Harold’s grandson, Adam Nicolson, also talks passionately to The English Garden about the spirit of place: ‘People don’t come to Sissinghurst because it is quite like everywhere else, shaped by the tasks of everywhere else, but because it is exceptionally itself. Its potential for beauty and richness needs to be entirely understood and made entirely explicit, not buried under a duvet of the average.’ Speaking to The Daily Telegraph, Adam cites the Italian musical term sprezzatura: ‘a state in which you are so in control you can afford to loosen up’, and as the spirit of the place he would like to see. ‘Beauty is the governing goddess at Sissinghurst. The place should be so over-brimming with plants, you can hardly move.’ The beautiful bond between the individual, the particular and the universal does seem very united at Sissinghurst. As you walk around the garden Troy has left hand-written notes for visitors drawing attention to particular plants or flowers or garden works taking place at the time. This is an intellectual writer’s garden and later this year Vita’s library of more than 12,000 books, now owned by the National Trust, will go on display for a month in South Cottage at Sissinghurst. I have been looking through some of her library bookshelves, curious about the books we share. Vita has most of Plato and Aristotle’s works, the Cedar Paul translation of Marx’s Capital Volumes I and II [1934], Huysman’s Against Nature, Thomas Mann’s This War [1940], books on Dutch flower painting (I spotted Dutch Flower Pieus by Percy Colson) and Romantic Painting (Bandits in a Landscape: A Study of Romantic Painting from Caravaggio to Delacroix) and Sir George Sitwell’s elegant book An Essay on the Making of Gardens; Being a Study of Old Italian Gardens, of the Nature of Beauty, and the Principles Involved in Garden
On the first Friday afternoon in May this year I was talking in the rose garden of Sissinghurst, with
Design [1909]. There is a book of Paul Dehn’s Romantic Landscape poems, Julie S.H. Pardoe’s The Beauty of
Troy Smith Scott, Sissinghurst’s head-gardener or in other words the world’s greatest gardener, as
the Bhosphurus [1838] (Vita had her first garden in Constantinople) and Oxford University Press’s To Persia
Sissinghurst is considered England’s finest garden. Troy finishes work at lunchtime on a Friday but had
For Flowers [1938].
come out to take notes of the work he needed to do in the garden in the week ahead.
It is well-known in gardening circles that Troy wants to make Sissinghurst ‘more romantic’ in keeping
being an incomplete introduction to the beauty and charm of a town we love by Count Ferdinand Czernin, with
Browsing these shelves there are also so many I still need — I have just ordered a copy of This Salzburg…
with Vita Sackville-West’s artistic spirit and he told me that Sissinghurst were at the early stages of
illustrations by Count Eugen Ledebur [1937], spotted on my last visit; Four Words (S.P.E. Tract no. XVII):
preparing an exhibition on Romantic Gardens. Troy’s vision means he wants to see much more ‘lavishness’
Romantic, originality, creative, genius, [1924] by Logan Pearsall Smith and the recently republished The
in the planting at Sissinghurst with it all feeling ‘looser and more billowing’. Troy is bringing back old-fash-
Beauties of Shakespeare: Selected from the Most Correct Editions of His Works [1830] by William Shakespeare
ioned English roses as well as the ‘shaggier’ outline of Harold and Vita’s day to the clipped Irish Yews in the
and Samuel Johnson. This may be Spring in the garden but I am looking ahead to winter and the work to
front courtyard.
be done. ii
Sissinghurst, Cranbrook, Kent [Friday 6 May 2016]
22
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The Romantic English tradition of landscape has always suggested continuity, the idea of a landscape not made but inherited, inspired by late-Renaissance renderings of classical antiquity, by Claude, Poussin and Piranesi, by paintings and engravings of the sublime. Regent’s Park, surrounded by John Nash’s Roman-inspired circuses and grand avenues, belongs to this idea of the picturesque. It once housed a coliseum-shaped building to which visitors flocked to look at a painted panorama of London. It contains villas, lakes and cottages and is framed by the white pickets of
classical columns as the animals in its zoo are contained by bars. And, in the Frieze Art Fair, the park has its circus, a tent which welcomes the world of art back into the landscape it once informed. Frieze touches the ground lightly, though. It is there and then it is gone, leaving a patch of grass briefly free of the leaves which have begun to coat the park. Edwin Heathcote introducing the work of artist Simon Fujiwara, winner of the 2010 Frieze Cartier Award, Financial Times, 8 October 2010. Frieze London and Frieze Masters, 5–9 October 2016 iii
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Nymans, Haywards Heath, West Sussex [Friday 13 May 2016]
Regents Park, London [Wednesday 27 April 2016]
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The Isabella Plantation is a 40 acre woodland ornamental garden set within a Victorian plantation in
My walk down into the Isabella usually begins at the stile into the Park on Ladderstile Ride, opposite
Richmond Park owned by the Royal Parks. It was fenced off in 1831 by Lord Sidmouth, the park deputy
Warren Road, on Kingston Hill, which takes you past herds of red and fallow deer and through a 2,500-acre
ranger, and planted with oak, beech and sweet chestnut trees and it’s this divine canopy of ancient oaks and
landscape that has changed little over the centuries and the setting for the four Golden Globe- and Oscar-
chestnuts that gives it its particular atmosphere of spiritual enchantment and beauty today. Its name most
winning classic historical drama Anne of The Thousand Days [1969] starring Richard Burton.
likely comes from the 15th century word isabelline that was given to a colour — pale, greyish yellow, pale fawn, pale cream-brown or parchment colour, and the colour of the acidic soil in this part of the park.
The garden is at its peak in Spring. From March along the path which runs through woodland up the
The soil was ideal for the acid-loving shrubs especially the lovely camellias, azaleas and magnolias that
western side of the garden you will find two of the many famous williamsii hybrid camellias: ‘Donation’
had been brought from South-East Asia in the 1920s by Ernest Wilson. This was observed by the George
and ‘Inspiration’ near the ancient pollarded oak. Nearby, the formal double white flowers, striped with red and pink, belong to Camellia japonica ‘Lavinnia Maggi’. Camellias frequently produce ‘sports’, and you may find white, red and striped flowers all on the same plant. Camellia japonica ‘Preston Rose’ also grows in this area and bears salmon-pink peony form flowers. Camellia ‘Parkside’ another williamsii hybrid bearing an abundance of large clear pink semi-double flowers grows in the Magnolia grandiflora Glade, and Camellia Japonica ‘Alba Simplex’, showing large white flowers with conspicuous yellow stamens, grows in many spots around the garden. During March several magnolias come into flower. A fine Magnolia stellata stands near the path above Thomson’s Pond and my favourite, two younger Magnolia µ loebneri ‘Leonard Messel’ can be found growing in Bluebell Walk opposite Acer Glade. This large shrub or small tree bears lilac-pink flowers that are deeper in bud. A more mature form can be found growing on the other side of Acer Glade by the Scots Pine. Of the narcissi, the delicate dwarf Narcissus cyclamineus, native of Spain and Portugal, is the first to bloom with pendant golden flowers with narrow trumpets and upward sweeping petals, reminiscent of a cyclamen bloom. Then comes N. bulbocodium, commonly known as the ‘hooped petticoat’ due to its widely flared trumpet. Blossoms to admire in March include the lovely Japanese ‘Fuji Cherry’, Prunus incisa, bearing small white flowers, which are pink-tinged in bud and appear pink from a distance, Clematis armandii, an evergreen clematis with creamy white flowers growing up a dead tree and the outstanding Chinese Rhododendron sutchuense which stands above the Still Pond, bearing a profusion of large bell-shaped flowers which are a rosy-lilac in colour with purple spots. Between the streams are two stunning rhododendrons grown for both their stunning flowers and bark — Rhododendron shilsonii which has loose trusses of bell shaped blood-red flowers and Rhododendron hylaeum with its pale pink flowers. R.calophytum ‘Robin Hood’ grows above these two rhododendrons, set back off the main stream path and bears large trusses of pale pink bell-shaped flowers with a maroon basal blotch. In April the streams are bright with marsh marigolds (Caltha palustris) and the Japanese azaleas start into flower. They are usually at their best during the last week of April and the first week of May. R. racemosum,
Thompson, the park superintendent from 1951-1971 who set about creating the exquisite present garden
a medium sized shrub that bears pale to bright pink flowers, grows down the path from the Still Pond.
of ponds, streams and very delicate plantings, particularly of spring flowers. Along with his head gardener,
Rhododendron ‘Quaker Girl’ grows in the glade set back from the path at the top of Thomson’s Stream and
Wally Miller he removed Rhododendron ponticum from large areas and replaced it with large collections of
bears trusses of stunning white flowers with a deep crimson throat and Rhododendron ‘Bibiani’, a shrub
more intriguing rhododendrons and camellias, plus many other rare and exotic trees and shrubs which
producing compact trusses of rich crimson funnel shaped flowers with maroon spots, also grows in various
provide colour and variety throughout the seasons for us today. George and Wally established evergreen
parts of the garden. Early evergreen azaleas begin to flower throughout the garden in April ” look out for
Kurume azaleas around the Still Pond and created the stream that meanders through the garden. More
‘Kirin’ a pale pink ‘hose in hose’ (flower within a flower) and ‘Sylvester’ which has small deep pink flowers.
recently, in 1989, a wild stream was dug in the northern section and this has now been colonised by ferns,
In a glade set back from the Main Stream and other locations around the garden are the blue flow-
water plantains and brook lime. It is also now home to our National Collection of the ‘Wilson Fifty’ Kurume
ering rhododendrons from the triflorum series — Rhododendron augustinii and the R. chasmanthum hybrid
azaleas, all of them shrubs introduced to England by E.H. Wilson, from China and Japan in the 1920s.
Rhododendron ‘Electra’.
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Isabella Plantation, Richmond, London [Wednesday 4 May 2016]
26
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Throughout the garden the pink and white forms of Magnolia soulangiana also come into flower. Magnolia
‘Heaven Scent’ (one of the Gresham hybrids) grows off the Main Stream and has goblet-shaped flowers, pink on the outside and white inside. Its flowers have a strong lavender scent. May is the peak flowering season for rhododendrons and azaleas — seek out the tall loderi hybrid ‘King George’, with its large soft pink flowers which are sweetly fragrant. It grows in a number places in the garden but most notably set back above the Still Pond. Follow the Small Stream down from the Still Pond to discover Rhododendron williamsiananum, a compact species with attractive bronze young shoots, distinc-
‘Gardens are about people, places and possibilities.’ Harvey Stephens, Deputy Keeper, The Savill Garden
tive heart-shaped leaves and bell-shaped, shell-pink flowers. A beautiful evergreen azalea to look out for is ‘Rosebud’ with its opening buds resembling tiny roses. ‘Palestrina’ is a white evergreen with a faint ray of green and ‘Vuyk’s Scarlet’, has large flowers of a deep silky red. Later in May Azalea pontica (Rhododendron luteum) creates fragrance as you enter the gate from the Broomfield Hill car park or by foot from the Ladderstile Ride stile. Trees flowering in Spring include the beautiful ‘Foxglove Tree’ Paulownia tomentosa, standing in the glade between the Still Pond and Old Nursery Glade, which bears sprays of fragrant foxglove-like pinkish-lilac flowers in Spring. The ‘Pocket Handkerchief Tree’ Davidia involucrata, set back from the Camellia Walk, has intriguing white hanging bracts. Another specimen may be found in a secluded lawn to the southeast of Thomson’s Pond. The ‘Snowdrop Tree’ Halesia carolina, with dangling white bell flowers, stands by the path above Thomson’s Pond. Cornus nuttallii, whose white bracts appear like flowers, can be found set back in the newly planted Magnolia Glade near the Ham Gate entrance. Bluebells carpet the wilder fringes of the garden throughout the Spring. I have yet to discover the Camellia japonica ‘Souvenir de Bahaud-Litou’, ‘a beautifully formed pale pink variety of with a scattering of flowers rather than a profusion’, which Robin Lane Fox mentioned in his Financial Times gardening column many springs ago. I will seek for it again next year.
The Savill Garden is the nirvana of gardens for plant lovers ensconced within Windsor Great Park and The Royal Landscape visited by garden connoisseurs from all over the world. One thousand years of Royal Patronage gives this great landscape of 4, 800 acres of sweeping parkland, gardens, lakes, deer parks, cascading waterfalls, ancient woodland, grand vistas and magnificent forest trails a particularly unique sense of tranquility. The Windsor Estate forms an important part of The Crown Estate’s £11bn real estate business, but under the Crown Estate Act 1961 the Windsor Estate is the only part of The Crown Estate’s portfolio that by law cannot be sold and is required by law to maintain its character as a Royal Park and forest. When I make this trip I become so lost in the richness of it that it is pretty dark when I am wandering back through the ancient oaks and majestic silver-boled beeches of Windsor Valley Gardens under which the
vi
The Savill Garden, Windsor Great Park [Friday 13 May 2016]
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Plantagenet, Tudor and Stuart Kings once hunted. The silence and the ghosts of past centuries can feel almost
gardener of the 200-acre estate since 2005. Exbury Gardens is renown for its large collections of rhododen-
quite disconcerting. I would like to make it down here one morning early for bird song and early morning mists.
drons, azaleas and camellias, and is often considered the finest garden of its type in the United Kingdom.
Last April I had a beautiful walk through The Savill Garden with Harvey Stephens, Deputy Keeper of
I look forward to visiting this garden throughout all its seasons, As Peter Coats says in his book, Great Gardens
the Gardens and Head of The Savill Garden for The Crown Estate. Harvey Stephens grew up in Cornwall
of the World, ‘even in winter, a visit to the garden is rewarding, if only for sculptural grace of the trees, and the
where his parents have a garden that he names as his favourite garden in the world — they open it under
flash of crimson of the pollarded dogwood; and there is, at Windsor, an unusual garden-within-a-garden, in
the National Gardens Scheme. Harvey trained in horticulture at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew for three
which only flowers and shrubs which can be expected to flower on Christmas Day, are planted’.
years and was subsequently awarded a scholarship to work at The Jerusalem Botanical Gardens from where he was also able to travel to gardens throughout Jordan and Egypt. After that he was Head Gardener at the Moscow University Botanic Garden for three years and speaks Russian fluently. While working in Moscow he met his Russia-born wife Nadia Giliova, a gifted concert pianist. Harvey has also worked at Borde Hill gardens in West Sussex and the Eden Project.
In the late Spring sunshine it was mesmerising listening to Harvey’s tales of emails and letters from plant
collectors and garden owners all over the world and all the projects he was engaged in while discovering, cultivating and caring for these collections of great beauty. We talked about the competitiveness and the care and work involved in the delicate operation of transporting delicate plants to horticultural and flower shows. For Harvey the essence of the season had been very colourful, fast moving, dramatic, exceptionally dry and unseasonably warm. We talked about Sir Eric Savill who had started the garden with the support of King George V and Queen Mary in 1932 when he was the deputy ranger of Windsor Great Park although the garden was mainly developed after the war in the 1950s. It was George VI who had the garden named after Sir Eric, who was knighted in 1955. Harvey spoke about his then boss, the late Mark Flanaghan’s trip to Japan with Tony Kirkham, head of the Arboretum at Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. They were following in the footsteps of Ernest Wilson, the great English plant hunter who did so much to bring the diversity of both Japanese and Chinese flora to western gardens. After the disastrous destruction of the great storms of 1987 Mark Flanaghan and Tony Kirkham, curators at Wakehurst Place and Kew respectively, had travelled to South Korea, Taiwan, the Russian Far East, Japan and China on plant collecting expeditions to source new specimens to rejuvenate the collections. On a trip to Sichuan in 2001 it was his encyclopædic knowledge of the gardening literature that led Mark to realise that a (by then dead) huge old Cunninghamia was the same tree as that photographed by Wilson in 1908. This extraordinary revelation sparked a further series of travels in which the two attempted to find locations visited by Wilson, and where possible, take a photograph from the same spot. Although much has changed in China, much remains, and the comparative images, published together in their book Wilson’s China (Kew Publishing, 2009), are incredible. In many cases the same trees are easily recognisable, even when they are just components of the landscape, not to mention the set piece images of magnificent veterans. Tragically Mark Flanaghan passed away last October (2015) after suffering an unforeseen heart attack in September that he never recovered from. Before he died, on hearing of his sudden and short illness, Mark was appointed a Member of the Royal Victorian Order (MVO) at his hospital bedside and posthumously
‘Do all the work you can. That is the whole philosophy of the good way of life.’ Eugène Delacroix
awarded the highest accolade in horticulture, the Royal Horticultural Society’s Victoria Medal of Honour (VMH).
This Spring The Crown Estate appointed John Anderson to the role of Keeper of the Gardens. Anderson
comes to the role from Exbury Gardens, within the New Forest National Park where he has been head vii
Hyde Park Rose Garden, London [Monday 6 June 2016]
30
‘That feeling of stirring, dynamic, constantly changing reality.’
I M P R ESS I ONS It is almost hard to imagine what a despair and sense of helplessness faced the intelligentsia in Paris in 1871. The Commune ends with a more complete defeat for the rebels than in any previous revolution but is the first to be sustained by an international labour movement. Despite their victory the bourgeoisie experience a sense of acute danger and everywhere there is a mood of crisis in the air. Industrialisation, financial capital and technical developments were all proceeding along as planned — the crisis itself must rather be seen as an incentive to new technical achievements and improvements of methods of production. Certain signs of the atmosphere of crisis make themselves felt in all the manifestations of technical activity. It is above all the furious speed of the development and the way the pace is forced that seems pathological, particularly when compared with the rate of progress in earlier periods of the history of art and culture. For the rapid development of technology not only accelerates the change of fashion, but also the shifting emphases in the criteria of æsthetic taste; it often brings about a senseless and fruitless mania for innovation, a restless striving for the new for the mere sake of novelty. Industrialists are compelled to intensify the demand for improved products by artificial means and must not allow the feeling that the new is always better to cool down, if they really want to profit from the achievements of technology. The continual and increasingly rapid replacement of old articles in everyday use by new ones leads, however, to a diminished affection for material and soon also for intellectual
31
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{
M USI C
}
possessions, too, and readjusts the speed in which philosophical and artistic revaluations occur to that of changing fashion. Modern technology thus introduces an unprecedented dynamism in the whole attitude to life and it is above all this new feeling of speed and change that finds expression in Impressionism.
Mars · March · März
Avril · April
c h a n t d e l’a l o u e t t e [ Song of the L ark ]
perc e -n e i g e [ s now d r o p]
the quivering, trembling dots and the hasty, loose and abrupt strokes of the brush, the whole improvised
‘The field shimmering with flowers,
‘The blue, pure snowdrop — flower,
technique with its rapid and rough sketching, the fleeting, seemingly careless perception of the object and
the stars swirling in the heavens,
and near it the last snowdrops.
the brilliant casualness of the execution merely express, in the final analysis, that feeling of stirring, dynamic,
the song of the lark
The last tears over past griefs,
constantly changing reality, which begun with the re-orientation of painting by the use of perspective.
fills the blue abyss.’
and first dreams of another happiness.’
The reproduction of the subjective act instead of the objective substratum of seeing, with which the history
of modern perspective begins, here achieves its culmination. The representation of light, air and atmosphere, the dissolution of the evenly coloured surface into spots and dabs of colour, the decomposition of the local colour into ‘valeurs’, into values of perspective and aspect, the play of reflected light and illuminated shadows,
Impressionism was the last step in a process of increasing obscurity that had been going on for centuries
·
but Impressionism was a more daring leap than any single phase of the earlier development, and the shock
Apollon Maykov
produced by the first impressionist exhibitions was comparable to nothing ever experienced before in the
1821–97
whole history of artistic innovation. People considered the rapid execution and the shapelessness of the pictures as an insolent provocation; they thought they were being made fun of it and the revenge they took was as cruel as they were able to contrive. From the late 1860s the Impressionists — Monet and other like-minded artists met with rejection from the Académie des Beaux-Arts, which held its annual exhibition at the Salon de Paris. In the spring of 1871, Monet's works were also refused authorisation for inclusion in the Royal Academy exhibition. During the latter part of 1873, Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Camille Pissarro, and Alfred Sisley organised the Société anonyme des artistes peintres, sculpteurs et graveurs [Anonymous Society of Painters, Sculptors,
SEASO NS
and Engravers] to exhibit their artworks independently. At their first exhibition, held in April 1874, Monet exhibited the work Impression, Sunrise, painted in 1872, depicting a Le Havre port landscape that was to give
Mai · May
the group its lasting name. From the painting’s title the art critic Louis Leroy, in his review, ‘L’Exposition des Impressionnistes’, which appeared in Le Charivari, coined the term ‘Impressionism’. It was intended as disparagement but the Impressionists appropriated the term for themselves. Impressionism as a collective movement begins now. However, Delacroix — who discovered the law of complementary colours and the coloration of shadows (Monet read Delacroix’s notebooks vociferously and throughout his whole life) — and Constable — who established the complex composition of colour effects in nature — already anticipate much of the Impressionist method. The rise of Impressionism as a movement is above all the artistic expression to the city — the beginnings of which are found in Manet — and its amalgamation in response to the vitriolic abuse and opposition of the public. The impressionist experience of the city expresses their opposition to the bourgeois view of life, its monotonous routine, ordered security and its disciplined practice. Although they themselves are not always aware of it, theirs is the art of an opposition, like that of all progressive tendencies from the Romantics, and the
les n u i ts de m ai ( starli t n i g hts )
‘What a night! What bliss all about! I thank my native north country! From the kingdom of ice, snowstorms and snow, how fresh and clean May flies in!’ Afanasy Fet 1820–92
rebelliousness latent in the impressionist approach to life, is why the bourgeois public rejected this new art.
While the impressionists might not have made it easy for the public to understand their art, appreciation
The Seasons, Op. 37a, is a set of twelve short character pieces for solo piano composed in 1875–6 by
of art was in a bad way when such great, peaceable, and honest artists as Monet, Renoir and Pissarro were
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. They were commissioned by Nikolay Matveyevich Bernard, editor of the
allowed to starve.
St. Petersburg music magazine Nouvellist, where they were subsequently published, month by month.
from
Arnold Hauser, The Social History of Art, Vol. 2, translated in collaboration with the author by Stanley Godman, Routledge and Kegan Paul [1951],
The epigraphs translated and reproduced above were chosen by Bernard.
{
BO O K
35
}
designer himself, who confirmed that the images brought to London by Ripa offered some visual hints of the natural appearance of the gardens of China. They also offered a term of comparison for the first gardens designed in the English landscape garden style. In 1751, Spence reported that ‘in the 36 prints of a vast garden belonging to the present Emperor of from Bianca
Maria Rinaldi, Ideas of Chinese Gardens: Western Accounts, 1300–1860,
(Penn Studies in Landscape Architecture), University of Pennsylvania Press, [2015]
China: there is not one regular walk of trees in the whole round, they seem to exceed our late best natural designers in the natural taste’. Yet those views, even if relatively accurate, gave only a partial image of the great imperial park. They depicted the main architectural complexities in the gardens, and these were shown as emerging from singularly natural settings: the buildings were surrounded by hills overlooking irregular lakes, placed amidst valleys or raised at the top of high mountains. Ripa’s views framed only
The first reliable graphic representation of a Chinese Garden to reach Europe was the collection of views
segments of landscape, without any general panoramas or plans able to offer an overall unitary sense of the
that the Neapolitan missionary Matteo Ripa [1682–1746] brought back from China in 1724. In 1713, Ripa
different scenes.
who had arrived in Beijing in 1711, had been entrusted by the Kangxi emperor [r. 1661–1722] with the task
Nonetheless, these images awakened great curiosity, to the point that eighteen of the views were re-en-
of executing a series of copper engravings, the first ever done in China, depicting thirty-six views of the
graved and published in London in 1753. The new images considerably altered the views produced by Ripa
vast imperial summer residence of the Bishu Shanazhuang (Mountain Estate for Escaping the Summer
in order to adapt them to European taste. Fantastic animals were inserted into the scenes along with human
Heat), built not longer before in modern Chengde, in northern China. During his return voyage to Italy
figures and shadows that extended the space represented in the drawings, which, conceived in accordance
Ripa stopped in London, bringing with him some copies of his album of views of Kangxi’s park in Chengde.
with the Chinese canon, lacked spatial depth in Western eyes. The views of the imperial park in Chengde,
On that occasion, those images were seen and some perhaps sold, giving Ripa’s engravings some visi-
executed in China under Ripa’s direction, remained for several decades the sole concrete images in the
bility among local artists and intellectuals. Among them was Joseph Spence, a poet, historian, and garden
various versions) of a great Chinese garden in circulation within Europe.
36
The gardens I was in China were very small; nevertheless from them, and what could be gathered from
37
sudden transitions, and a striking opposition of
and sometimes, by an artful disposition, such as
Lepqua, a celebrated Chinese painter, with whom I had several conventions on the subject of gardening,
forms, colours, and shades. Thus they conduct
have no resemblance to each other. In their large
IÂ think I have acquired sufficient knowledge of their notions on this head.
you from limited prospect to extensive views;
gardens they contrive different scenes for morning,
Nature is their pattern, and their aim is to imitate her in all her beautiful irregularities. Their first confed-
from objects of horror to scenes of delight; from
noon, and evening; erecting, at the proper points
eration is the form of the ground, whether it be flat, sloping, hilly, or mountainous, extensive, or of small
lakes and rivers to plains, hills, and woods; to
of view, buildings adapted to the recreations of
compass, of a dry or marshy nature, abounding with rivers and springs, or liable to a scarcity of water; to all
dark and gloomy colours they oppose such as
each particular time of the day: and in their small
which circumstances they attend with great care, choosing such dispositions as humour the ground, can be
are brilliant, and to complicated forms simple
ones (where, as has been observed, one arrange-
executed with the least expense, hide it’s defects, and set its advantages in the most conspicuous light.
ones; distributing, by a judicious arrangement,
ment produces many representations) they dispose
the different masses of light and shade, in such
in the same manner, at the several points of view,
As the Chinese are not fond of walking, we seldom meet with avenues or Ipacious walks, as in our European plantations: the whole ground is laid out in a variety of scenes, and you are led, by winding passages cut in’ the groves, to the different points of view, each of which is marked by a feat a building, or some other object. The perfection of their gardens consists in the number, beauty, and diversity of these scenes. The Chinese gardeners, like the European painters, collect from nature the most pleasing objects, which they endeavor to combine in such a manner, as not only to appear to the best advantage separately, but also likewise to unite in forming an elegant and striking whole.
I N
C H I NA
Their artists distinguish three different species of scenes, to which they give the appellations of pleasing, horrid, and enchanted. Their enchanted scenes answer, in a great measure, to what we call the romantic, and in these they make use of several artifices to excite surprise. Sometimes they make a rapid stream, or torrent, pass under ground, the turbulent noise of which strikes the ear of the newcomer, who is at a loss to know from whence it proceeds: at other times they dispose the rocks, buildings, and other objects that form the competition, in such a manner as that the wind palling through the different interstices and cavities, made in them for that purpose, causes strange and un common sounds. They introduce into these scenes all kinds of extraordinary trees, plants, and flowers, form artificial and complicated echoes, and let loose different forts of monstrous birds and animals.
a manner as to render the composition at once
buildings, which, from their which, from their use,
In their scenes of horror, they introduce impending rocks, dark caverns, and impetuous cataracts
sifting in its parts, and striking in the whole.
point out the time of day for enjoying the scene in
rushing down the mountains from all sides; the trees are ill-formed, and seemingly torn to pieces by
Where the ground is extensive, and a multi-
its perfection.
the violence of tempests; some are thrown down, and intercept the course of the torrents, appearing as
plicity of scenes are to be introduced, they gener-
if they had been brought down by the fury of the waters; others look as if mattered and blasted by the
ally adapt each to one single point of view: but
As the climate of China is exceeding hot, they
force of lightning; the buildings are some in ruins, others half consumed by fire, and some miserable huts
where it is limited, and affords no room for variety,
employ a great deal of water in their gardens.
dispersed in the mountains serve, at once to indicate the existence and wretchedness of the inhabitants.
they endeavor to remedy this defeat, by disposing
In the small ones, if the situation admits, they
Pleasing ones generally succeeds these scenes.
the objects so, that being viewed from different
frequently lay almost the whole ground under
The Chinese artists, knowing how powerfully contrast operates on the mind, constantly practice
points, they produce different representations;
water; leaving only some islands and rocks: and
from
William Chambers, Designs of Chinese buildings, furniture, dresses, machines, and utensils: to which is annexed a description of their temples, houses, gardens, London [1757]
38
39
in their large ones they introduce extensive lakes,
The stone they are made of comes from the
i n t e r s p e r s i n g a m o n g t h e m s u c h a s p ro d u c e
by introducing buildings, appearing in the front or
rivers, and canals. The banks of their lakes and
southern coasts of China. It has a bluish cast, and
flowers; of which they have some that flourish a
foreground, and by these means rendering what in
rivers are variegated in imitation of nature; being
is worn into irregular forms by the action of the
great part of the year. The Weeping- willow is one
reality is trifling and limited, great and consider-
sometimes bare and gravelly, sometimes covered
waves. The Chinese are exceeding nice in the
of their favourite trees, and always among those
able in appearance.
with woods quite to the water's edge. In some
choice of this stone; insomuch that I have seen
that border their lakes and rivers, being so planted
places flat, and adorned with flowers and shrubs,
several Tael given for a bit no bigger than a man's
as to have its branches hanging over the water.
The Chinese generally avoid straight lines; yet they
in others steep, rocky, and forming caverns, into
fist, when it happened to be of a beautiful form
They likewise introduce trunks of decayed trees,
do not absolutely reject them. They sometimes
which part of the waters discharge themselves
and lively colour. But these select pieces they use
sometimes ere&, and at other times lying on the
make avenues, when they have any interesting
with noise and violence. Sometimes you see
in landscapes for their apartments: in gardens
ground, being very nice about their forms, and the
object to expose to view. Roads they always make
meadows covered with cattle, or rice-grounds
they employ a coarser sort, which they join with
colour of the bark and moss on them.
straight unless the unevenness of the ground, or doing otherwise. Where the ground is entirely
that run out into the lakes, leaving between them
bluish cement, and form rocks of a considerable
passages for vessels; and sometimes groves, into
size. I have seen some of these exquisitely fine, and
Various are the artifices they employ to surprise.
other impediments, afford at least a pretext for
which enter, in different parts, creeks and rivulets,
such as discovered an uncommon elegance of taste
Sometimes they lead you through dark caverns
level, they look upon it as an absurdity to make a
sufficiently deep to admit boats; their banks being
in the contriver. When they are large they make
and gloomy passages, at the issue of which you
serpentine road: for they say that it must either be
planted with trees, whose spreading branches,
in them caves and grottos, with openings, through
are, on a sudden, struck with the view of a deli-
made by art, or worn by the constant passage of
in some places, form arbors, under which the
which you discover distant prospects, They cover
cious landscape, enriched with every
thing that
travellers; in either of which cafes it is not natural
boats pass. They generally conduct to some very
them, in different places, with trees, shrubs, briars,
luxuriant nature affords most beautiful. At other
to suppose men would choose a crooked line when
interesting object, such as a magnificent building,
and moss; placing on their tops little temples, or
times you are conduced through avenues and
they might go by a straight one.
places on the top of a mountain cut into terraces;
other buildings, to which you ascend by rugged
walks, that gradually diminish and grow rugged,
a casine situated in the midst of a lake; a cascade;
and irregular steps cut in the rock.
till the passage is at length entirely intercepted,
What we call clumps, the Chinese gardeners are
a grotto cut into a variety of apartments; an artifi-
When there is a sufficient supply of water, and
and rendered impracticable, by bullies, briars, and
not unacquainted with; but they use them some-
cial rock; and many other such inventions.
proper ground, the Chinese never fail to form
stones: when unexpectedly a rich and extensive
what more sparingly than we do. They never
Their rivers are seldom straight, but serpentine,
cascades in their gardens. They avoid all regu-
prospect opens to view, so much the more pleasing
fill a whole piece of ground with clumps: they
and broken into many irregular points; sometimes
larity in their works, observing nature according
as it was less looked for.
consider a plantation as painters do a picture,
they are narrow, noisy, and rapid, at other times
to her operations in that mountainous country.
Another of their artifices is to hide some part
and group their trees in the same manner as
deep, broad, and flow. Both in their rivers and
The waters burst out from among the caverns, and
of a composition by trees, or other intermediate
these do their figures, having their principal and
lakes are seen reeds, with other aquatic plants and
windings of the rocks. In some places a large and
objects. This naturally excites the curiosity of
subservient mules.
flowers, particularly the Lyen Hoa (lian hua) of
impetuous cataract appears; in others are seen
the spectator to take a nearer view; when he is
which they are very fond. They frequently erect
many lealer falls. Trees, whose leaves, intercept
surprised by some unexpected scene, or some
This is the substance of what I learnt during my
mills, and other hydraulic machines, the motions
sometimes the view of the cascade and branches
representation totally opposite to the thing he
stay in China, partly from my own observation,
of which enliven the scene: they have also a great
only leave room to discover the waters, in some
looked for. The termination of their lakes they
but chiefly from the lessons of Lepqua: and from
number of vessels of different forms and sizes. In
places, as they fall down the fides of the moun-
always hide, leaving room for the imagination
what has been said it may be inferred, that the art
their lakes they intersperse islands; some of them
tain. They frequently throw rough wooden bridges
to work and the same rule they observe in other
of laying out grounds, after the Chinese manner,
barren, and surrounded with rocks and shoals,
from one rock to another, over the steepest part
compositions, wherever it can be put in practice.
is exceedingly difficult, and not to be attained
others enriched with
precepts are simple and obvious, yet the putting
every thing that art and
of the cataract; and often intercept it’s passage by
nature can furnish most perfect. They likewise
trees and heaps of stones, that seem to have been
Though the Chinese are not well versed in optics,
form artificial rocks; and in compositions of this
brought down by the violence of the torrent.
yet experience has taught them that objects appear
them in execution requires genius, judgment, and
less in size, and grow dim in colour, in propor-
experience, a strong imagination, and a thorough
kind the Chinese surpass all other nations. The
by persons of narrow intellects. For though the
making them is a distinct profession; and there
In their plantations they vary the forms and
tion as they are more removed from the eye of
knowledge of the human mind. This method being
are at Canton, and probably in most other cities of
colours of their trees; mixing such as have large
the spectator. These discoveries have given life
fixed to no certain rule, but liable to as many vari-
China, numbers of artificers constantly employed
and spreading branches, with those of pyram-
to an artifice, which they sometimes put in prac-
ations, as there are different arrangements in the
in this business.
idal figures, and dark greens, with brighter,
tice. It is the forming of prospects in perspective,
work of the creation.
quoted in
Bianca Maria Rinaldi, Ideas of Chinese Gardens: Western Accounts, 1300–1860,
(Penn Studies in Landscape Architecture), University of Pennsylvania Press, [2015]
{
c o c ktail
}
41
fleurissim o
1 white sugar cube 5 dashes of Peychaud’s bitter 5ml violet liqueur 15 ml Rémy Martin VSOP cognac Champagne, to top up Soak the sugar cube with Peychaud’s bitter Gently drop into the Champagne coupe filled with rest of the ingredients Top up with Champagne and garnish with rose petals
E S S ENC E
‘Everything, it is said, has an Essence; that is, things really are not what they immediately show themselves. There is therefore something more to be done than merely rove from one quality to another, and merely to advance from qualitative to quantitative, and vice versa : there is a permanent in things, and that permanent is in the first instance their Essence. (…) Still it should be remembered that the only means by which the Essence and the inner self can be verified, is their appearance in outward reality.’.
cocktail created by Agostino Perrone, Director of Mixology, Connaught Bar, London for the Masterpieces Menu — a selection of legendary cocktails for which the bar is renowned; famous recipes re-inspired and creatively reinvented text from
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, The Logic of Hegel,
translated by William Wallace, Forgotten Books [2012], originally published 1892
Chris Ofili, Midnight Cocktail [2015], oil on linen, 310 × 200 × 4 cm © Chris Ofili, courtesy David Zwirner, New York/London
42
Abu Ward: This is hazelnut, at the start of its life Hazelnut This is loquat This is a pear tree My place here is worth billions of dollars! I own the world! We ordinary people own the whole world! (The sound of war) is like Beethoven’s music We have become accustomed to this music: without it we couldn’t manage! So we think of it as music now This one was hit by shrapnel from a barrel bomb But it is still alive, thanks to God This tree will live and we will live, despite everything This one is an evergreen! This flower is finished now, but the new one can now start to grow Flowers help the world, and there is no greater beauty than flowers Those who see flowers enjoy the beauty of the world, created by God And when you smell them they nourish the heart and the soul The essence of the world is a flower
Abu Ward (which means ‘Father of the Flowers’) ran Aleppo’s last remaining garden centre and was interviewed and filmed in April 2016 by Waad al-Kateab for Inside Aleppo: the tale of the flower-seller, Channel 4 News.
right
Claude Monet, Water Lilies (Agapanthus) [c.1915–26], oil on canvas, 200 × 426 cm, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri, Purchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust, 57-26, photograph: Louis Meluso back cover
Claude Monet, Water Lilies [c.1916–26], oil on canvas, 200 × 426 cm, Saint Louis Art Museum, The Steinberg Charitable Fund 134:1956