IN SEARCH OF SUBLIME SNOWDONIA Landscape Aesthetics and the tourist mind Gareth C S Roberts Paper presented at Plas Tan y Bwlch 21st September 2012 as part of a course convened by the Snowdonia National Park Authority supported by Landscape Research Group and Cymdeithas Eryri / the Snowdonia Society ABSTRACT This paper explores how 18th century ideas about landscape aesthetics prompted the growth of tourism in Wales and continues to influence policy approaches towards landscape protection, internationally. Focusing on circumstances prevailing in Wales at this time, the paper examines the role key individuals played in a process that culminated in radical changes in public attitudes to landscape and became manifest in how the tourism industry was to develop. It concludes by reflecting on how 18th century ideas about landscape aesthetics are still reflected in public policy thinking about the conservation of ‘natural beauty’ albeit the justification and rational for the policies and public preferences for such landscapes may not always be clearly understood . Key words: landscape, aesthetics, tourism INTRODUCTION The 18th century was an age of enlightenment in Europe, marking a period of critical questioning of traditional institutions, customs and morals. It was also a time of great technological change, enquiry and invention that manifest itself in an industrial revolution that brought about social and political change across Britain. The 18th century marked the beginnings of ‘modern’ tourism, an industry that by today is very diverse and accounts for 12% of the global economy, but in those early years, was very much linked to a new found interest in landscape. Much of this interest was focused on Wales and the development of ideas about landscape aesthetics. These ideas continue to dominate policy thinking about the protection that should be afforded to certain landscapes world wide. As an art historian, geographer, landscape manager and planner and as someone who has lived and worked in Wales for many years I have a particular interest in this subject. These are some of the research questions that interest me: Why did public attitudes to landscape change in the 18th century? What contribution did Wales make to this process? Why was Wales an especially popular destination for late C18th travellers? How was this popular interest in Welsh landscape developed and exploited? What have been the consequences of this legacy on public policy? Over this weekend I hope that together we can explore these more depth. WALES IN CONTEXT An appreciation of the geography of Wales and the configuration of its physiographic, social and economic circumstances helps us understand the importance of Wales (generally) and the significance of Eryri (in particular) in these matters. CHANGING ATTITUDES TO LANDSCAPE Snowdon, the highest mountain in England and Wales stands at 1065 meters. Last year about 400,000 visitors found their way to its summit. Two and a half centuries ago it was a place considered best to be avoided. The following description of Snowdon and its environs reported by a London solicitor travelling in North Wales in 1732 is typical of public attitudes to mountainous landscapes in other regions in the first half of the 18th century. The Country looks like the fag end of Creation; the very Rubbish of Noah's Flood; and will (if any thing) serve to confirm an Epicurean in his Creed, that the World was made by Chance'. (Anon, 1732) Daniel Defoe’s views of Welsh landscapes, unlike those of the anonymous traveller in 1732, were not clouded by Old Testament scriptures but are equally disparaging. Travelling in the County of Brecknockshire which he suggests would be more aptly named Breakneckshire, he describes hills which are now in the Brecon Beacons National Park as ‘these horrid mountains’. (Defoe, 1726) By the end of the century attitudes to Wales and Welsh landscapes changed radically1 and landscapes formerly shunned as places to be avoided suddenly became popular2.The change began with a challenge to the Old Testament Biblical accounts of creation of the World with geologists, many of them informed by research in Wales, demonstrating that the shape, form and character of our landscapes were the product of geomorphological processes over millions of years. In 1757, Edmund Burke (1729-1797) the Irish Parliamentarian and philosopher, published a treatise on landscape aesthetics which argued that landscapes evoke strong feelings in people - both awesome and pleasurable. Burke’s Philosophical Enquiry avoids references to Christian theology, preferring secular language to explain profound human experiences. His principal interest was to better understand how the human mind responds to landscape experiences in order that he might help ‘establish standards of Taste and find laws for the Passions’. The concepts of the sublime and beautiful were, in Burke’s view, frequently compounded… and indiscriminately applied. (Burke 1757). This inquiry commanded the mainstream of eighteenth century intellectual debate for philosophers, poets and painters for the remainder of the century. The opportunity to share views about such issues was helped enormously by improvements in travel and transport which were to make Wales far more accessible. Earliest improvements to roads in North and South Wales were to routes linking the ports of Liverpool and Bristol that had grown rapidly because of their association with the slave trade. The introduction of new laws after 1770 made it easier to build and maintain roads to consistent standards. This speeded up travel by stage coach, facilitated the exchange of ideas and opened up places like the mountains of north Wales previously considered too remote to visit. Improved communications with Ireland became a political imperative after unification with 1 In the 102 years of its publication The Gentleman’s Magazine (1731-1833) was the most popular monthly digest of its time. Between 1731 and 1773 it carried fewer than a dozen references to Wales. In the 1770s the Magazine was feeding an insatiable appetite for any information about Wales and through the 1780s and 1790s Wales appeared in every issue of the Magazine! 2 Caves, caverns, deep valleys and mountain lakes were associated with the haunts of the Devil. The entrance to the Blue John Caves, in Castleton, Derbyshire, now one of the most popular tourist attractions in England’s most visited National Park was known as ‘the Devil’s arse’ in the early 1700s . Britain in 1800. Journeys from Anglesey to London which would have taken days in the 1770s were reduced to a matter of hours by 1850. Improved transport also helped transform Wales from a predominantly agricultural society to one of the most industrialized countries in the world. In 1770 the population of around 500,000 was almost exclusively involved in agriculture. By 1851 two-thirds of the population of 1,630,000 found livelihoods in mines, quarries, furnaces or other industries. Wales controlled half of the world’s copper supply in 1800 with Swansea alone producing 90 percent of that output. Wales possessed an abundance of metalliferous ores, wood (for charcoal) and coal used in smelting processes, which made it an attractive location for industrial entrepreneurial activity and the manufacture of products needed to sustain the slave trade. During the course of the 18th century Britain perfected the Atlantic slave system whereby bar iron and copper goods made in Welsh factories were exchanged for African slaves. British merchant ships transported almost three million Africans across the Atlantic between 1750 and 1810. Many of these ships were built in Wales and crewed by Welsh captains and seamen plying between the West Indies and Liverpool and returning with the products that Wales consumed – sugar, rum, tobacco and cotton. A new leisured class emerged, people with disposable incomes to buy imported luxury goods, travel more freely and safely and patronize the arts like never before. Their patronage was directed first at portraiture (of themselves and their families) but quickly extended into the new enthusiasm for landscape painting. One Welsh artist in particular, made the shift admirably. Richard Wilson, born in Penegoes near Machynlleth was quickly hailed as the master of landscape painting in the classical style, travelled extensively in Italy before returning to Britain where his earliest and wealthiest patrons were Welshmen including Edward Lloyd of Pengwern and John Myddleton’s of Chirk for whom he painted several landscapes in the Italianate style. British society became more jingoistic as the threat posed by Napoleon following the French revolution of 1789 increasingly loomed large. It led people to reflect on the last invasion of Britain in 1066 by the ‘Norman French’ and an interest in Welsh history and the heroic efforts of the Welsh princes who resisted the best efforts of Plantagenet kings until Edward 1st to subjugate the Welsh for a further 200 years. The British aristocracy showed interest in the language and culture of Wales too, and in 1751 the Cymmrodorion Society was established in London for the encouragement of literature, science and arts associated with Wales. The Bardic traditions of playing the harp, writing poetry and penillion singing and eisteddfodau that had become moribund, again became popular and actively encouraged by the Welsh gentry. LANDSCAPE, CULTURE AND TOURISM INTEREST The Bard became an icon of national resistance and after the publication of Thomas Gray’s Romantic poem ‘Ode to the Bard’ in 1757 and became the subject of allegorical paintings by many British artists. It mattered naught that the Druidic figure, the subject of the poem , was chronologically out of kilter, being described and depicted as railing against Edward Is invasion of Wales in 1282 rather than that of the Romans legions 1200 years earlier!3 Gray never visited Wales yet his poem suggests he had in that it refers specifically to a rocky location overlooking the river Conway (sic) where he describes the Bard confronting Edward’s army before hurling himself into the torrent below.