Hafod - one of the sites in The Three Landscapes Project

Notes on the Picturesque - Two - History

This 'wide shot', the subject of Note One, is taken from the only historical account available about Johnes and Hafod – ‘Peacocks in Paradise' by Elisabeth Inglis Jones. Any archive materials are sparse and spread about, and we can be grateful to the author for bringing them together into one volume.

The book, however. written in the 1950's (before the 60's - when everything was problematised) is written in the style of an historical novel, and Johnes is portrayed as dashing romantic hero, troubled genius, devoted father, paternal landlord and general benefactor of the Welsh nation. His wife and his daughter are grven corresponding roles in Inglis Jones' 'script'.

This is all deeply problematic in any project to 'read' history. It creates an unquestioned certainty and comfort at the heart of the account that allows us to believe two things - first, that we somehow know these people (for they are basically the same as us) - and second, that it is possible, through research, to know such people. This, I find very difficult and, in the end, an untenable starting point for our project.

Instead, I have tried to read materials from a somewhat opposite standpoint - that is, that we do not 'know' these people and that their lives and their times and their bodies are entirely alien to us. It is only in historical ‘wide shot' that we can sustain the pretence - and a close up is not available. If it was - if we were flown back in time to stand in front of Johnes - I am inclined to believe that it would be deeply traumatic to us, or that his world would be, in large part, invisible.

Reading in this forced way then, one somehow has to do two things - one has to get close enough to smell his breath, and yet far enough away to remember his strangeness.

In Three Landscapes, therefore, you will find no Grand Unified Theory of Hafod, Thomas Johnes or the 18th century. Instead, you will be aware of a fairly deeply problematised portrayal, whose starting points have been varied and unorthodox.

For instance, I purposefully avoided reading Elisabeth Inglis Jones' account until the very end of my research period - and allowed other materials to create a landscape of ideas that would prevent her narrative sitting like a rock in the middle of my field of vision.

Cliff McLucas