Like many of us right now I’m finding solace in daily exercise, taking the form of a run if I have the energy and a walk if I don’t. Whilst on a recent jaunt around my particular patch of south Bristol, I stumbled across this strangely evocative scene. The half demolished/half built garden brought to mind a painting by Danish artist Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg.
The piece titled A Courtyard in Rome (1813) depicts - as the name would suggest - a courtyard, bathed in sun, surrounded by rustic buildings and a terrace defined by plant pots. In the essay, ‘A Real Living Contact with the Things Themselves’ Irénée Scalbert uses the painting to mark a moment during which scholars engaged in The Grand Tour moved their attention away from the picturesque landscapes and classical language that had interested the previous Romantic generation. Instead, they turned their gaze towards what surrounded them, the ordinary, the everyday. In this case, that meant recording the lives and spaces of peasant Italy, away from the well-trodden paths of baroque Rome and Tivoli, towards the communities and rural landscapes of Capri and Naples. What they found in the ordinary was no less picturesque. Through a concentration on the things that surrounded them, artists, writers and poets discovered the extraordinary and a certain beauty.
This brings me back to that piece of smashed-up yard in Bristol. Perhaps beauty is a bit strong, however as the world feels like it’s on pause, moments like these that make me pause on my walk, feel evermore worthwhile.
Joe