Hafod - one of the sites in The Three Landscapes Project

Notes on the Picturesque - Five - Landscape

During the past year, I have walked the land of the Hatod estate many times - an obvious and regular tecnnique used whenever we desire to create a project in or about a particular site. It is not unusual for me to wander around a building or location for hours on my own - to really get to know, or even simply to see what is there.

Hafod does not respond to this technique, and I wondered why for many months. The frustration of 'getting nowhere' with this direct and prime activity was great. The rubble from the destroyed house is there and you can climb over it, but without extensive and detailed information, it is almost impossible to see the landscape that Johnes created. Were these trees planted by Johnes? Or have his been felled and replaced with the same species, which are now much less mature? Or have they been replaced by new species? Are they on land previously not planted by Johnes? What am I looking at?

Trying to open ones eyes and receive Johnes landscape is not possible, and instead an informed looking or projection would be necessary to get even close to what he did - a looking that could visually cut, paste, and edit!

But finally, on one trip, I saw one thing that seemed important. From all of the millions of trees planted by Johnes, I found one in Mariamne's garden that she had grown - by grafting an exotic 'cutting' onto a common rootstock - and the horizontal 'step' running around the tree is there to feel, after 200 years.

On the same visit, after waiting for 'the Picturesque' to hit me in the eye, it occurred to me that 'the Picturesque' might be more to do with the posture, bearing and active looking of the 18th century gentleman, and the personal 'erotics' of such looking, than with real 'out there' arranged landscape. The need, therefore to 'get behind Thomas Johnes eyes' became a central idea, and the impossibility, the alien-ness, difference and untenability of that project began to excite me.

Cliff McLucas