Günter Dinhobl (Hrsg.): Sonderband 7. Eisenbahn/Kultur – Railway/Culture (2004)
II. Die Wahrnehmungen von Raum / The perceptions of space - Jill Murdoch: The Railway in Arcadia: An Approach to Modernity in British Visual Culture
Jill Murdoch and tempestuous passions, can hardly be put in motion by the delicate and refined play of the imagination.14 Perhaps not surprisingly, such sentiments did not sit well with the newly rich merchants and industrialists who began to seek some influence in the running of their country and some share of the cultural pleasures that it offered. Towards the end of the eighteenth century social tensions were high in England with industrial upheavals at home and the long shadow of events on the continent. At this time criticisms began to be made of the traditional form of landscape design. A ‘wilder’ look was developed within the same structures so that the long views were maintained but nature was allowed a ‘shaggier’, more natural look. The ideological purpose of this change seems to have been entirely conscious. Making the link between aesthetics and government quite explicit, Uvedale Price, one of the main advocates of the new style, wrote in 1797: A good landscape is that in which all the parts are free and unconstrained, but in which, though some are prominent and highly illuminated, and others in shade and retirement, some rough, and others more smooth and polished, yet they are all necessary to the beauty, energy, effect and harmony of the whole. I do not see how good government can be more exactly defined.'5 Price was calling for a greater inclusivity in the structure of the landscape, an inclusi vity that he sought to relate to the role of government. This more ‘natural’ and picturesque appeared to signal the end of the exclusivity of the aristocracy’s ruling position in society. Their superior liberal vision was not directly challenged but was placed in the wider context of the natural order of things which now allowed that there was a place for everything(one) so long as everything(one) stayed in that place. So the landscape itself held a powerful ideological function, an ideology that now recognised a specific place in society for the emerging middle classes - giving them, as well as the aristocracy, a vested interest in its maintenance; the intrusion of the railway, in whose construction or financing their hands were often so very dirtied, uniquely had the power to destroy the vision.16 In this context it can now be seen why a Member of Parliament’s primary fears about the railway were that ‘parks, gardens and ornamental grounds were to be broken into’ by the Fire King.17 14 Burke, Edmund: A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful. Oxford 1990 (Orig. 1767), p. 23. 15 From Price, Uvedale: Thoughts on the Defence of Property, quoted in: Bermingham: Landscape and Ideology, p. 85. 16 See also B a r re 11 : The Political Theory of Painting from Reynolds to Hazlitt, p. 9; and, for detailed arguments in this area see: Copley, Stephen - Garside, Peter (eds.): The Politics of the Picturesque. Cambridge 1994. 17 Holly: Panofski and the Foundations of Art History, p. 28. 118
