Prospect and Refuge

Look at this. So many people thought this was great. (I hope Freddy doesn't mind me reproducing it). But why do so many people like it?



Prospect and Refuge?

Anyone else come across this theory, which tries to work out what landscapes man finds beautiful? Or thought about what makes a certain view of your garden 'perfect'?



Yi-Fu Tuan in his book Topophilia reckoned that man achieved harmony in his garden if he could suggest a balance between wild and slightly dangerous nature outside the garden contrasted with nature he had tamed and dominated in the garden: the immaculate lawn, the straight borders, the square steps.


Claude Lorrain

As for other garden features, you might think, ''well, it's obvious that people like a fence for privacy and nice lawn'' but over the channel it's not obvious at all, where in France they're just as proud of their flower borders and rose shows but think that a piece of dust in the middle is the way to go. In eastern Europe you find perfect, tended specimin shrubs isolated and dotted around nice lawns and the boundaries left unmarked and open to view.


Stowe

But crowded, peaceful England might be different. The English geographer, Jay Appleton, reckoned he had found a key to what makes paintings beautiful. Looking at typical landscape paintings, he found repeated use of the stable and shady foreground, somewhere inviting where we could be safe in the distance like a tower or a wood, a good view in the middle and some obstacle to overcome in between to add a frisson of danger and sense of opportunity.


Shaded foreground, complex middleground, hint of danger with vistas and a place of refuge in the background. Sold for £9M three years ago. J.M.W. Turner is often voted the most popular British painter, which indicates people share his ideas of beauty.

Appleton reckoned this was simply man the hunter as viewer, chosing the perfect (foreground) position: hidden, his back against some cover where things are ordered to his liking and a good view of the game. The complex things he needed for survival (like water, plants, animal runs) are easily seen in front of him. And at the end of a route there's place of refuge out there if he gets into trouble.


John Constable's Haywain: the most popular British landscape painting (according to a 2005 poll). Stable foreground, hint of danger in the water, a cottage for refuge and long vistas.

I still think that the main reason a landscape painter has for chosing his view is to find a comfortable place to sit where people can't look over his shoulder! Still, these ideas (more here: http://everything2.com/title/Prospect-refuge theory ) have been applied to gardens. For example Richard Haag, a landscape architect used the theory slavishly in his gardens in North America and won the top award from the Society of Landscape Architects. Meanwhile thousands of English gardens all over the country have the shadey terrace, the broad vistas across the lawn with the flower borders, the stepping stones, the pond and the distant bench or pergola refuge. Just like Appleton's theory.



Or indeed, taking Freddy's renovation in the top photo, you have in the distance the prospect of a sunny refuge in the largely hidden garden. To get there there's a route over uncomfortable-looking gravel past complicated potting, but there are safe stepping stones to help you. You don't know what danger the garden might harbour and there's an obstacle with the gate. But there's also a temporary refuge under the new roof where you can pause, unseen, to check out what's around the corner.

So if you look at what you're trying to do with your garden, does it fit these ideas? Or not? In my experience men agree with this theory while women are more sceptical. Is that because men are wired up as hunters?

Or another question: What is your favourite view or place to be in your garden?

 

Freddy's picture works for me because as you look down the path, it is an ordered, uncluttered route to something else beyond, that you can see looks promising, but can't quite see fully because most of the garden is round the corner at the end. So it appeals to the built in sense of adventure and need to explore, but also its a great place to escape. You can't see all of the garden, yet you know its there, so logically if you go in then you're hidden from the rest of the world, so there's the notion that you can escape everything for a while and just relax in nature.

Of course that's just my interpretation anyway

I think the need to explore and the need to hide away that I think all of us have to some extent, is the reason why it often works so well to divide a garden into sections with nooks and crannies in it, or arch ways or anything that makes it so that you can't see the whole lot in one go. My favourite larger gardens of those I've visited are ones where the paths are not straight, and you quickly lose your sense of direction so it seems you're walking for miles and miles when in fact you haven't strayed very far at all really.

 

It's interesting that most of these famous pictures have people in them, something when I'm out and about with my camera I aim to avoid. If I go out to take scenery, that's all I want. So this makes me think it's up to the individual and we don't all want the same from a painting, photograph or a garden for that matter.

My own garden has nothing mysterious about it, I like the open feel it has with mainly lawn and the first thing you would set eyes on walking down my drive is the greenhouse in my back garden, it is a practical area and probably reflects that I prefer growing.

I think all the elements that make up the paintings above aren't what most of us as individuals expect or want to see (artistic interpretation) either within or without our own gardens. But there again, most of us aren't artists, painting pretty pictures for everyone to see and certain elements have to be included in the paintings to keep the onlookers interest. We're gardeners and that is reality. This isn't a slur on artists by any means, they are beautiful scenes, but my garden isn't an oil painting and I wouldn't want it to be.

 

That's a nice way to put it- especially as you bring out the fact a garden is for moving in, not just viewing. I'd like to line a path around my garden with screening plants and pergolas, so I get the illusion of entering a wood - so you feel you want to see what's around the corner as you say. I've seen a few garden competition winners with the modern vogue for a floor at the end of the garden and a dramatic wall or fence behind. It's a prospect but not a refuge. Like this:
Dunno about you, but this makes me feel really uncomfortable. The visitor is spotlighted on the attention-seeking floor with no cover, you can't see your neighbours but they and anyone in the house can spy on you. Not to mention the fact you'd have to faff about with the seat covers every day. Under the birds' perch. Maybe that's why they're white! And when you get there, what do you see? Back where you came from!

 

I'm like you, I prefer pictured landscapes without people. So did Turner but he found that his paintings got more interest at first with people in them.

I'd be interested to know if you have total privacy from your neighbours, 'cos that makes a big difference.

Well, if you view it as a place of experiment and projects and then you'll have a different idea of what makes it nice perhaps. Do you have a favourite spot in it? Or is that in your greenhouse?

 

The gardens you describe here are exhibition pieces, designed to be viewed from one position. That's different altogether to gardens designed to be appreciated long term.

There is a special elitist book, the yellow book I think its simply referred to as, listing private gardens that are opened to the public at least one day per year. A garden has to be a bit special to get into the yellow book. Apart from being nice, it has to be on a certain scale, but its not measured in area, its measured in terms of how many minutes worth of interest there is. If a tiny garden can keep a visitor engrossed for 45 minutes, then as long as other criteria is met, it can be listed in the yellow book. Whereas a 10 acre site that is just flat lawn, a path and a seating area would not get in because it would hold your attention for less than 45 minutes.

 

No Cacadores, I don't have total privacy unfortunately. Although I live on an avenue of bungalows my neighbours have built into their rooves. The interesting thing is I'm not living in an area where I wish to be. Although I'm interacting here on GC with members, I prefer nature around me not humans. My ideal living would be a remote Scottish island with sheep for company and total peace.

My garden's not a place of experiment or projects. I get pleasure from growing garden plants from seeds and cuttings, so I probably spend a good amount of time in my greenhouse. I don't have a favourite spot, I very rarely sit in my garden, I prefer to be doing things.

Having said all this it probably gives you the impression my garden is totally boring. I'm still in the process of completely 'renovating' both my gardens, which were in a dreadful mess when I moved in a number of years ago and my aim is to have simple but attractive layouts in both with low maintenance.

 

Yes, I'd like to break the garden up into sections with different moods. Is your garden in the book?

 

I wish you luck. I'm beginning to think that it actually takes quite a bit of time to keep on top of the work in a low maintainance garden. So much so that it's not dissimilar to having a high maintianance garden......

 

Only the mundane fear elitism. And what page are you on then, Shiney?

 

I tried to load before and after pictures yesterday but unfortunately 'gremlins' wouldn't let me do so. I'm out tomorrow but I'll try again Friday during the day, when there's less activity on the net, it tends to make a difference.

 

If my garden was to be in a yellow book, most likely it would be the Yellow Pages, under Landscaping Services. My garden could feature as a 'Before' example

 

You could start a Yellow Book Rebels book.

I like seeing gardens that aren't very good.
They give me hope.

Straining at the leash for a gander!