English Pastoral

This is kind of the... I don't know... footnote to a post I wrote about loving London, with a kind of ambivalence that is important to acknowledge.

So, these gorgeous parklands, havens of peace. The rural idyll - and the reason that this nation has more ancient trees than anywhere else.

And yet these images also reflect so much of what is wrong.

1) feudalism and the enclosures: land that was once common made private. The few benefiting as the many suffered.

2) a blueprint for what English colonialists did to landscapes in America, Africa and Australia.

3) a use of land that is neither hugely biologically diverse nor especially functional... I mean, the land is kind of wasted from the point of view of the ecology and the food provision. What it offers aesthetically is limited to the few - you can at least look over the fences. What it offers recreationally is limited to the owners.

But, at the same time, it's rather lovely.