Fantasy Paradise around me
Abstract
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My main concern as a painter is to investigate the mystery of different places in the existing world and the imaginary world, and to look for the connection between the two worlds through a portal for example, The cupboard in the Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (CS Lewis, 1950).
There are two types, one is heaven, and another is hell, which can also be called as Utopia and Dystopia. Throughout my Unit 2 Contextual Practice Essay, I developed some ideas on the places in fantasy novels and movies, Alice in Wonderland and the Narnia Kingdom in the Chronicles of Narnia and the similarities between Chinese and Western history and culture on this particular topic though a Chinese poem. In this research, I would like to focus on the fantasy paradise, along with the exploration of fantasy garden. Thereby, to deduce returning to paradise is a continuous action starting from the stage of biblical history till now and is a kind of action escape from the reality, which is demonstrated through garden design.
It is believed that the action of exploring paradise is original from the idea of returning to the paradise. I am going to take reference mainly from the fantasy literatures, the story of the Garden of Eden from the bible, my experience in gardens and parks, and referring to a few artworks, the painting of the Peach Blossom Spring in the Long Corridor Summer Palace, The Garden of Eden with the Fall of Man by Brueghel and Ruben’s, The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch, “The Best Storyteller I” by Karin Mamma Andersson sculptures in Garden of Bomarzo and Niki de Saint Phalle’s Sculptures.
The wardrobe in the Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
“Once upon a time” is my favourite TV series of all time. In the series, it talks about numerous worlds and different plot backgrounds such as, Neverland, Wonderland, Underworld, Land Without Magic, to name a few. Characters travelled through different worlds using magic and through various portals. It provokes my curiosity and raises my interest in exploring different worlds. Thinking about various lands, they all have their own characteristics and I wonder if they really exist. So I want to explore the fantasy world, via gardens and strange parks in Europe.
World Crossing in Once Upon A Time Season 1 Episode 1
Paradise
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To deepen my knowledge on paradise, I start to research the origin of paradise and fantasy worlds. When considering the two terms, fantasy paradise and imagination, they can often appear very abstract. Paradise is a fantasy imaginary place, appears in many situations, movies and novels scene. Paradise was, for people in late antiquity, it is full of bountifulness and tranquility. In numerous viewpoints, heaven came to be imagined as a wonderful garden. The term originated in Old Iranian languages, e.g. Avestan Pairdaeza (from pairi, round; plus diz, form), in which it designated a park surrounded by walls. Gardens may have first been associated with heavenly places in Sumerian thought, according to which deities supposedly frequented a lush island called Dilmun. The biblical notion of the Garden of Eden “delight” could have been influenced by this Mesopotamian precursor. (Bowersock, 1999)
The Garden of Eden or paradise is the biblical ‘garden of God’, and is the first typical paradise in general. The Garden of Eden is described in Genesis Chapter 2 and 3. There are all kinds of trees growing out of the ground – trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. There is a river watering the garden flowed from Eden; from there it was separated into four headwaters (Genesis 2:18-19).
Comparison of paradises through artwork
Brueghel. J and Rubens P.P. (1615) The Garden of Eden with the Fall of Man [Oil on Panel] Mauritshuis, The Hague, The Netherlands
Above I am looking at two paintings related to Garden of Eden, Brueghel. J and Rubens P.P.’s “The Garden of Eden with the Fall of Man” and Hieronymus Bosch’s “The Garden of Earthly Delights”. In the painting above, it shows Adam, Eve and other animals in a natural scene. The painting depicts the moment before the consumption of the forbidden fruit, and the fall of men. From the work, prosperity can be interpreted, showing the healthy and plump body of Adam and Eve, along with the bloominious and gigantic tree and fruits on it. The painting successfully illustrates the characteristic of a paradise, showing a diversity of ecosystem, thereby indicating God is making an ideal place for human being to live, a place without badness and harm, that we call it a fantasy paradise now.
Bosch, Hieronymus (1503-1515) The Garden of Earthly Delights [Oil on oak panel]. Museo del Prado, Madrid
The second painting I am looking at is Hieronymus Bosch’s “The Garden of Earthly Delights”. It is Bosch’s most complex and enigmatic creation. It is a medieval painting presented in a triptych. The work is divided into three parts, while sin is the connecting link between the three scenes. It is a paradise that foretells the joys of heaven. On the inner face of the triptych, painted in brilliant colours which contrast with the grisaille, Bosch painted three scenes that share the single common denominator of the concept of sin, which starts in Paradise or Eden on the left panel, with Adam and Eve, and is punished in Hell in the right panel. The center panel depicts a Paradise that deceives the senses, a false Paradise given over to the sin of lust. (The Garden of Earthly Delights Triptych, 2018)
In the above two paintings, the aim of the artist seems to be to create a paradise in their own point of view. Considering the two works, in terms of colours, elements, and composition, they are all very different, it is a significant comparison of a realistic and imaginary landscape. When I first looked at Bosch’s “The Garden of Earthly Delights”, I was so amazed by his details and the strangeness. The artist-biographer Karel van Mander described his work as comprising “wondrous and strange fantasies” (Karel van Mander, 1604). Hieronymus Bosch’s work is full of imaginations and he is known for his fantastic illustrations of religious concepts and narratives. His art was inspired by heretical points of view, as well as by obscure hermetic practices. In contrast to Bosch’s work, “The Garden of Eden with the Fall of Man” is a relatively realistic painting. Rubens, P.P. was well known with the nudes of various biblical and mythological human body and his nudes emphasize the concepts of fertility, desire, physical beauty, temptation, and virtue while Brueghel, J. worked in many genres including still life, allegorical and mythological scenes, landscapes etc. The painting is a collaboration of the two artists, with one contributes to painting realistic human bodies and the other to landscapes and numerous animals from exotic and native European species. “The Garden of Eden with the Fall of Man” is a landscape painting, reference to Genesis, which shows a typical Garden of Eden, and that is the main reason it does not appear special to me.
Regarding colours, the colours in Bosch’s work are interestingly vibrant and unrealistic, it catches our attention and excites people’s mind. However, the colours in Brueghel and Rubens’s work are comparatively natural and in an earthy tone. For example, both the paintings have the major use of green, but the look totally different. Bosch used bright yellowish green, which turned out to feel very cold and sick, it also gave a very flat feeling. On the other hand, Brueghel and Rubens used a warm mossy green, it symbolized fertility and growth. Another example is the use of pink in “The Garden of Earthly Delights”. With the contrast to the light green, the pink popped out and created a dramatic and dreamy effect, which cannot be seen in classic landscape artwork.
Talking about the elements in the two works, the main focus is human being. There are uncountable people in Bosch’s painting, it is very hilarious to me, as the people Bosch painted are overlapping, bodies are elongated and their posts are distorted. The skin colours are either very pale or dark as black. Unlike Bosch’s, in Brueghel and Rubens’s painting, Adam and Eve are drawn vividly, their bodies are plump with firm muscles, since it is Rubens’s profession. Apart from human bodies, the second focus is animals, especially in terms of proportion. Bosch was regarded as “the inventor of monsters and chimeras”, his masterpieces include strangers, mysterious, fearful components. The biggest irritation in the work is the proportion of the animals. A giraffe does not look like a giraffe; a bird does not look like a bird. Animals in his work are much larger than proper scale, people are hugging fishes and ducks with a same size as the human in the painting; a clam is eating a human; people riding on birds. There are two types of owl, which evoke evil. The animals in the work might not really exist. Also for the plant, the trees are as tall as the human, fruits are larger than their scale dimensions, such as people hugging the gigantic strawberry. The entire composition is dotted with pieces of red fruit that contrast with other large and small blue ones, these being the two principal colours in the scene. It is funny to look at.
In terms of structure and composition, the two paintings are very contrasting. “The Garden of Eden with the Fall of Man” is a classic landscape painting, it has a right perspective, animals at the background are far away, while Adam and Eve are huge and become the main focus. The further away, the grayer and muted the animals and plants are, can be seen in the painting. Nonetheless, it can be seen and distinguished that “The Garden of Earthly Delights” is an imaginary creation. It is composed in three parts, It does not have an obvious regular foreground, midground and background. The perspective is a bit unusual and it is divided into the top, the bottom, the middle layer, is a work with a more free style.
“The Garden of Earthly Delights” can best represent the biblical imaginary paradise. The work is a triptych oil painting on oak panel. There is design on the exterior panel and paintings on the interior panel. The outer panels are generally thought to depict the creation of the world, showing greenery beginning to clothe the still-pristine Earth. A triptych is a painting made up of three sections. Such constructions are usually made of two wings or shutters attached to either side of a central panel. To protect the major painting inside the panel, the panels are hinged and the wings can be closed. The scale of triptychs can be very big. Bosch’s “The Garden of Earthly Delights” is more than 2m X 4m in size, plus the feature of triptychs panels, being flexible that can be closed and opened, it resembles a door. Opening the triptychs panel, it feels like getting into the world of painting, the paradise.
Looking at Bosch’s triptych panel, it reminds me of portals. I love reading fantasy novels and watching movies. Many of the movies include shuttling through worlds with the use of portals. There are many examples of transmitting across world through portal. As mentioned before, I love watching Once Upon a Time, all sorts of portals are brought up in the TV series, such as Jefferson’s hat, magic beans and world crossing. Other examples, like Doraemon’s Dokodemo door, the glasses in “Alice Through the Looking Glass” and cyclones in “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz”, are strong proves of fictional characters used portal to travel through worlds. Returning to the topic of art, apart from Bosch’s work, we have talked about, I would like to mention Karin Mamma Anderssons's series of artwork “The Best Storyteller”.
Brueghel. J and Rubens P.P. (1615) The Garden of Eden with the Fall of Man [Oil on Panel] Mauritshuis, The Hague, The Netherlands
Andersson’s artworks are well known for creating different spaces. When Christian Hawkey (Hawkey, 2007) sees her work, she suggests that Andersson’s paintings construct a similar but more complicated set of relationships. They are filled with rooms, stages, stages sets, theater sets, and gallery spaces. Rooms are set in landscapes hovering on the walls of rooms. And she repeatedly blurs distinctions between interior and exterior space. Christian also said her new work marks a shift toward interior spaces-rooms, stage sets, classrooms, living rooms-and yet the depicted interiors, like memory, are always misleading, indeterminate. Distinctions between memory and hallucination, interior and exterior, are blurred (Christian, 2007). In the painting “The Best Storyteller I”, the walls in the painting are each an individual landscape painting. It creates illusion for audiences of reaching into the painting and out of the room. As the televisions in the painting are switched on, it allows viewers to feel as if they can assess to any places without any boundaries by going into the monitors. To me, art is a way to get yourself into a whole new space, painting is the only way to escape without stepping out of the house. Staring at the canvas, it characterizes another form of portal.
Paradise Lost
Apart from art, paradise is also mentioned in various literatures, one of the most well known and most important s “Paradise Lost” by John Milton. In “Paradise Lost”, Milton sculptures the tragic and sorrowful scene of hell, the chaotic abyss of the boundless and endless landscape of the garden, as well as the indescribable state of heaven. The paradise in Milton’s poem is described into three spaces, heaven, hell and earth. The name Milton used for this light-filled Heaven is the Empyrean which for classical authors was the indestructible realm of light or fire. Heaven, which is pure light, is also pure goodness. Hell for Milton is literally the underworld, is the opposite, pure evil and pure darkness, in fact a darkness, so pure that it is visible, a contrasting quality to the blinding light of Heaven. Adam and Eve are banished from Garden of Eden, where it is absolutely perfect and pure, after the consumption of the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. (Genesis 3:23) From that time on, people are striving better place to live in. This has been a really ancient idea, a yearning can also be found in Chinese and Western culture.
As we discussed before, in my Unit 2 Contextual Practice essay, I introduced Tao Yuanming and his famous poem “The Peach Blossom Spring Story”. He was a Chinese poet who lived during the Eastern Jin (317-420) and Liu Song (420-479). He spent most of his life in reclusion, living in a small house in the countryside. Paradise in Chinese is a four words expression, “ shìwaì taòyuán; the Peach Spring beyond this world, has become a popular Chinese idiom, meaning an unexpectedly fantastic place off the beaten path, usually an unspoiled wildness of great beauty. It has become a standard Chinese term for ‘utopia’. In the poem, it explained why Tao escaped the society, city to the ‘paradise’. Reading all the literature and art, they gives me the perception that paradise is always located in nature and that people are always seeking for a paradise.
Paradise in the form of parks and gardens in daily life
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In our daily life, one of people’s habits is travelling on holiday. Picturesque places like the Caribbean has been on many people’s wish list. Yes, exploring new places and better places is what we eager to do. However, in Gibson’s article (Gibson, 2014), she stated a good point, we don’t really mean it when we say our week in Antiqua was “paradise”. We mean that we saw the sun, we lounged about, we didn’t check our emails, we got bitten by sand flies, we had a squabble with our partner, we drank some rum, we made up with said partner and we found that the week went by too quickly (Gibson, 2014). Another way to say it, we are escaping the reality to a space were we never can live our life in, to a person from the city, it is a countryside, an opposite place, the place we long for.
Garden in Hampton Court
“Paradise” thought to derive from ancient Iranian “pairadaeza” meaning “walled enclosure”, used to describe enclosed gardens or parks. Thus, I started to investigate about garden and park, from bizarre parks around the place, to Disneyland, to garden design and Islamic garden. During the summer, I took a walk to Hampton Court Palace and the Crystal Palace Park. Hampton Court Palace is a tourist spot. It was a cloudy day. The park became all golden since the continuous sunny weather since the past two months. I particularly went for the maze. It is the oldest surviving maze, having been built for King William III and Mary II in 1690. The maze originally part of the Wilderness, which was a formal garden of high hedges where courtiers could wander get enjoyable lost. When I was finding my way to the maze, I passed through the Kitchen Garden and Rose Garden. Walking across the gardens reminded me of the enclosed garden and the Islamic Garden. The pattern and the composition of the garden is the same as the Islamic Garden with a center in the middle and then a cross to divide the garden into four parts. It looked like the four rivers instead it is road path. The garden also has similar pattern as the floral carpet designs. Walking in the maze, it first made me dizzy, feeling to get lost in the park. But after a while, I realized it was not that difficult to find the exit. It took me only 10 minutes. To further up, I walked around the park. It was getting quieter and peaceful in the inner part of the park, felt like being in a paradise with getting lost and temptation. The other day, I visited the Crystal Palace Park Dinosaurs. It is a series of sculptures of dinosaurs and other extinct animals. The dinosaur area in the park is designed as a theme park. It is like a paradise of impossible. It is fill with dinosaur sculptures, like the creatures that never exist, full of imagination, things that we do not believe. Walking in the area felt like passing through a time tunnel, being into another world. My immediate thoughts and my curiosity questions after the two visits are why people still creates parks referencing to the biblical garden, the connection between the existing world and the imaginary paradise and our imagination to fantastic creatures.
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After the research and some visits, I have come out with three main points; paradise is a way of escaping the reality, is a place where all possibilities exist, and it is all around us. On British Broadcasting Corporation, Simon Schama has once presented a documentary, Picturing Paradise (BBC, 31 March 2018). He showed how depictions of a landscape could act as an escape from the anarchy brought by humanity, idealize the world in which we live and, in some cases, contribute to the construction and ideals of the identity of a nation. No matter it is a grand theme park, a normal park, or even your back yard, being in it is a way of getting rid of your current life. People go to a park for relaxation, it always brings happiness, but it can also makes you got lost. During the visit to Hampton Court Palace Maze, the park made me feel dizzy, not only because of the maze, but also when I was walking in the field. Being in the field, you have no directions. A paradise is full of temptation. Disneyland, which can be said as the children’s paradise, is one of the most typical examples. It fulfills our temptation and brings us satisfaction, just like the Garden of Eden.
Garden of Bomarzo Tarot Garden by Niki de Saint Phalle
Additionally, paradise is the place where all possibility exists. Looking at miscellaneous examples, there are parks, gardens, in our existing world that has the resemblance of paradise. The Sacro Bosco, named Garden of Bomarzo, is said as the park of monsters, “Parco dei Mostri”, located in Bomarzo, Italy, is one of the ‘strangest’ parks. The park is filled with bizarre fascinating sculptures for which only the accompanying inscriptions provide any explanation. The sculptures in the park have been the weirdest creatures, are Mannerist works of art, symbolism is arcane. Among the pieces are a war elephant, a monstrous fish-head, a giant tearing another giant in half, and a house built on a tilt to disorient the viewer. And the most frightening and famous is the enormous head, Orcus mouth, a mouth opened wide in a scream. The garden layout bore little resemblance to the symmetry of other Renaissance gardens, and the art was made in a rough “Mannerist” style, a sort of 16th century of Surrealism. Looking at the statues, they call out my memory of Bosch’s The Garden of Earthy Delights since they both have a great sense of imagination in terms of creatures. They are both as horrific and mysterious. Talking about Garden of Bomarzo, Tarot Garden can be comparable. Niki de Saint Phalle was inspired by Bomarzo for her garden, Giardino dei Tarocchi, The creation of monster is one of the possibilities it can be happened in the paradise. Paradise can be said as a place where monsters live in, not only for horrific ones, but also for a fantasy one, like unicorn, llama and dragons. Niki de Saint Phalle created massive monsters, they are tremendous sculptures made with mosaic work. It was plaster spread over the metal, and the monsters became looming, creamy ghosts, then turning into colourful cute monster. To Saint Phalle, the Tarot Garden was to be an Eden of art and magic. To the local gentry, the garden was an act of vandalism (Levy, 2016).
Last but not least, paradise is existed in out world in different forms or ways. Paradise can be existed in carpet design and floral design etc. The Islamic garden evolved from a much older Persian tradition, the enclosed garden, called the paridaize, which gave us the word paradise. It is a cool place of rest and reflection, and a reminder of paradise. Paradise can also be presented through carpet design. By the late middle Ages, the garden carpet had migrated from its humble origins in Arabia and Central Asia to become a symbol of luxury and sophistication in the royal court of the Persian Shah. The 16th and 17th centuries were a golden age for Persian garden carpets. Muslim who sat upon it, whether emperor or humble tribesman, of heaven. Examples of carpets we have are like the Kardish Garden Carpet and Persian Garden Carpet, they have floral pattern and the pattern of the four quarters, bounded by the four rivers. In the documentary, Picturing Paradise, Simon Schama also went to the beautiful Palladian house of Daniele Barbaro in the Vento. There are landscape paintings on the wall, the planets and the gods, cavorting on the ceiling. Simon discovered that observed nature – rather it is a projection of dreams and idylls, as well as of escapes ad refugees from human turmoil, the elusive paradise on earth.
Conclusion
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To conclude, I have written the following three main points in the research. I made the comparison of paradise through a realistic landscape, Brughel and Rubens’s “The Garden of Eden with the Fall of Man” and an imaginary paradise Bosch’s “The Garden of Earthly Delights”. I also looked at artwork, which depicts paradise and illustrates going through a portal to get into a whole new world, referencing from Mamma Andersson’s “The Best Storyteller I” and portals door from some films and cartoons. To invest deeper real parks associated with paradise, I visited Hampton Court Palace and Crystal Palace Park. I also do some research on Islamic Gardens, Garden of Bomarzo and Tarot Garden by Niki de Saint Phalle as a result to conceive the connection between the biblical paradise and real parks around Europe.
Document Download: Contextual Practice - Fantasy Paradise around me
Reference
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Bosch, Hieronymus (1503-1515) The Garden of Earthly Delights [oil pin oak panel]. Museo del Prado, Madrid
Brugehel. J & Rubens P.P. (1615) The Garden of Eden with the Fall of Man [Oil on panel] Mauritshuis, The Hague, The Netherlands
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