Chapter 1 of 24
Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe
For many years now I've been interested in the relation of abstract art to landscape. Is it, in fact, possible to transfer the abstract ideas of painting and sculpture into the natural world about us? Of course this is difficult because trees are trees and humans are humans and they don't like being made an abstract. But I think there are certain Fundamental principles in all art, as Joshua Reynolds said, and Humphrey Repton also agreed, that basically all art goes back to the same source. Egg you tap this source? I think one can. I was encouraged by the original statement of a Chinese master to his students on how to paint landscape. 'Conceive hills and minor hills as human behaviour'; that is to say, the larger hill would be the host, and the smaller bills would be his guests. And I have used this myself in the grouping of trees for instance. In the Classical world, trees were formal, regimented and so forth, because Man dominated Nature. New, in China this is something quite different, and the trees are grouped according to the informal grouping that you expect with people in conversation. And so, in certain parks, when one comes to arranging trees, one goes back to think 'how do humans behave.’ And then you find, curiously enough, that this effect on landscape appears to be very satisfactory. And I think that many landscape architects do in fact operate on this idea of analogy, quite subconsciously. what one is after is the appeal, to the subconscious in Man, as compared with the conscious. If you can do the two together, then you'll get an -art which is strongly reinforced. The two together are very strong.