Ruin
Recompose a landscape of romantic ruined follies, framed within the view of a nearby cave.
A drawing from Nash’s office shows a folly in the form of a prehistoric tomb or Druid’s temple, intended for the grounds of Blaise Castle House near Bristol. Designing follies was a favourite preoccupation of eighteenth-century architects; this sketch was made by the George Stanley Repton, younger son of the highly regarded landscape designer Humphry Repton, and produced while the former was working for Nash. It followed the picturesque belief in adding architectural ornamentation to enhance a naturalistic landscape, often reminiscent of another time or place.
Picturesque planning is based on both withholding and revealing certain spatial information. Often such views are illusory, completed by the play of light, exaggerated scale, and blurring the edges where the built fabric meets the natural environment. The picturesque aesthetic invites the composition of idealised forms, arranged to orient the viewer by acting as markers in the landscape.
The fanciful, almost whimsical nature of follies suggest the wealth and the aspirations of the client, or the architect. Both in paintings and real buildings, follies were often depicted in picturesque settings, mixing real and fictional scenarios. In Nash’s work, follies such as this prehistoric temple are repeatedly used as motifs, transcending the immediate contexts and producing a moment of fictional delight.
