Picturesque pile or wretched wreck?

click photo to enlarge
What word would you use to describe this derelict Fenland cottage? Bucolic? Enchanting? Decrepit? Quaint? Crumbling? Is it a picturesque pile or a wretched wreck? Structures such as this usually provoke very polarised views. There are those who see them as a dangerous eye-sore that, at any moment, may fall on a passer-by, their appearance regarded as a blot on the local landscape, and an affront to surrounding buildings. Others find the dilapidation picturesque, a reminder of times past, a counterpoint to neat lawns, mathematically precise brickwork and gleaming plastic window frames. The fact is, such a building will usually be one or other of those things to most people. But, there are a few who will see it as both those things, getting enjoyment from it whilst regretting its demise, and also recognising the need for it tbe restored or replaced.

Those who see something to admire in decay and dereliction are often infected, to a greater or lesser extent, by Romanticism as that term came to be used in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Frequently they will have an artistic bent, liking poetry, literature, painting, photography, etc. And many will have an appreciation of history and place. Of course, the photographic or painted image often adds its own veneer to a depiction of a ruin, and the selective, edited image frequently betters the reality. My wife suggested today's photograph is an example of that phenomenon, when she remarked as she looked over my shoulder at the image on my computer screen - "That looks more picturesque than it does in real life."

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Lumix LX3
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 7.4mm (35mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f3.5
Shutter Speed: 1/400
ISO: 80
Exposure Compensation: -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Repetition and symmetry

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Repetition and symmetry are key characteristics of classical achitecture. The Greeks and Romans who were responsible for this style created an architecture that emphasised man's intellect, and his dominance and control of nature. It was these two devices that allowed their buildings to stand apart from the "messy" natural world. The idea of taking the same form and repeating it across a facade, as here on the ground floor and first floor of the north front of Grimsthorpe Castle, Lincolnshire, began with the repeated columns of Hellenic temple porticos and spread into the serried arches of Roman architecture, most notably in the Colosseum. Renaissance architects both copied the ideas of the ancients and elaborated upon them.

Gothic architecture, however, especially in its Victorian incarnations, had more time for asymmetry. In the position of entrances and towers, for example, and also in the arrangement of floor plans, they frequently proclaimed the virtue of a more practical and studied irregularity. When they sought "balance" in a building it would sometimes be achieved by the careful disposition of different forms, rather than by multiples of the same form on either side of a line of symmetry. However, Gothic and other "Romantic" styles of architecture continued to value the virtues of repetition and even symmetry, as the Perpendicular Style of the fifteenth century, and nineteenth century industrial architecture in England frequently testifies.

It's interesting to speculate whether the repetition of forms in building came about for aesthetic reasons or for convenience of manufacture and construction. We are, of course, unlikely to know the answer to that question, but the designers and workmen of ancient civilizations must have found it easier to replicate and erect several columns that were identical, or move supporting wooden formwork between arches that were all the same size and circumference. Those advantages were certainly not lost on the Victorians who often made and assembled windows and ornament off-site. This is an aspect of classical architecture that I've never seen discussed anywhere, but which occurred to me as I was photographing this facade. The drawings for the design shown here date from 1722, making it one of the last works by Sir John Vanbrugh who died in 1726. Nicholas Hawksmoor may have completed his structure. It's inconceivable that the main entrance of this elevation would be placed anywhere but the centre, and the fountain could only ever be placed in line with it. Even the gardeners, when positioning their planters of topiarised box obeyed its imposing symmetry and repetition, so I decided that I must do that too, in my photograph.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 86mm (172mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f4.8
Shutter Speed: 1/640
ISO: 200
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Poplars and composition

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Look at most landscape photographs, and for that matter, figurative paintings, and you see the influence of Romanticism. The lofty peaks, lakes with reflections, asymmetrical groups of trees, vistas through gateways, ramshackle barns and fields with grazing horses all owe their genesis to the rise of Romanticism in the eighteenth century. I've talked about this development before, and acknowledged the debt and gratitude that we owe the painters, musicians, philosophers, writers and poets who opened our eyes to this view of nature. Most of my landscape photographs can be described as being in the "Romantic tradition."

But, every now and then, I produce a landscape that falls outside this style. The antithesis of Romantic is Classical, and today's image is one that I would describe in those terms. Why is that, you might wonder? Well, where Romanticism has to do with deep emotion, melancholy, the sublime and asymmetry, Classicism is about order, repose, clarity, symmetry, and intellectual control. There is more to it than this, particularly in the area of literature, but if I were forced to use a one word summary of the two styles in terms of art, I'd say that Romantic is diagonal and Classicism is horizontal (and/or perpendicular)!

Passing this row of vertical young poplars near Great Steeping, Lincolnshire, I immediately thought to compose them against the horizontal line of the horizon. Moving the viewfinder up and down I found I preferred it when the horizon cut the fame in half (allegedly a photographic faux pas, but one that deserves to be ignored.) This allowed me to create a composition of, essentially, quarters - sky, tree tops, grass bank and tree trunks, road and shadows. A vanishing point is located near the middle of the photograph. The slight curve of the road, and the "quarters" that are not quite regular, disguises the underlying structure. However, any qualities the image has depends on these "hidden" controlling elements that give it those "Classical" overtones.

Here is another of my "controlled" images.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 11mm (22mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/400
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Symmetry

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Photographers don't like symmetry. Nor do painters, graphic artists or sculptors. But architects and designers do, and always have done!

Symmetry in building is a manifestation of the Classical mindset. Greek and Roman architecture is highly symmetrical, and so are the Renaissance styles that took their inspiration from the antique. However, the rise of the Romantic movement pushed all this to one side. The love of the wild, the untamed, the natural, all led to an admiration for architecture and design that eschewed symmetry. Thus, in landscape gardening, out went formal French parterres, and in came "informal" English parkland with its serpentine paths and lakes, and asymmetrically placed "eyecatcher" follies. Out went Palladianism, and in came asymmetrical houses and villas like Nash's Cronkhill House and Philip Webb's Red House. Interestingly Gothic architecture loved both symmetry and asymmetry. Romantic painters favoured asymmetrical compositions, and Modernists continued this love affair. Photography seems to have adopted its position by reference to painting: balanced asymmetry is in, straightforward symmetry is out.

But I like a bit of symmetry now and again! Today's photograph is of Boston Baptist Church, built in 1837, a time when English church architects had dumped Georgian Classicism, and were casting around for a new style. This rather spare Gothic characterises the period before 1840. After that date the writings of A.W.N. Pugin and the Oxford Movement pushed churches towards a Gothic based on archaeolgical principles and the careful study of real medieval buildings. The design above is interesting, but owes nothing to Pugin, and verges more on the hysterical than the historical!

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 20mm (40mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/500
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: Off