Day Twelve - Out west
As we've finished the Wye River tour there are still sites included in the additional journal from edition two which are interesting and certainly were considered and visited by subsequent travelers seeking the Picturesque. Of these, we've managed to see Llanthony, Crickhowell, Raglan, Abergavenny, the Black Mountains, Skenfrith, Hay-on-Wye, and Newport. There are always others, many which we will sadly be unable to visit this trip. Perhaps a sequel or some form of spinoff? After all, Gilpin wrote eight travel journals.
Today we revisited Chepstow to see the Chepstow Racecourse which hosts a Sunday market in the parking lot. With the ruins of Piercefield Park in the near background and Wyndcliff in the distance. The scene is another small saga of the vagaries and effects of time and taste. I bought two cheap watches, since my expensive watch's band continues to break at the most inopportune times. I also got a great deal on socks, so now I don't need to wash any for the rest of the trip.
Afterwards, we headed back to the Black Mountains, driving back up the Wye Valley along with a very obvious glut of tourists driving through the early fall colors on a gorgeous afternoon. We decided to retry our luck with Llanthony Priory since we now had a good map of the area.
Our last trip through Abergavenny was greeted by a rain that rather seemed to be thrown, spit, or slung and not simply dropping to earth. Sheets of droplets would appear from out of nowhere and smack the car, followed by a dry spell only to be repeated over and over. The wind was equally intermittent, not to mention the sunlight. Today was clear and crisp, except for the single cloud which parked over Llanthony for the better part of two hours.
We walked around the Priory (and hotel, farm, and stables) looking for interesting scenes, waiting for the sunshine to return. A variety of opportunities presented themselves including a pet gray parrot, horse-play, and the pub within the converted part of the priory ruins.
The drive home was probably the best in terms of light, sun dodging in and out of long, low clouds that we'd seen. We arrived back in Monmouth in time for dinner at The Punch House situated on the market square where statues of Henry V and Charles Rolls were erected outside the market hall. The sun was just past setting and I silhouetted Rolls figure against the constant flow of traffic through the town centre.
As the trip is now complete, I have several pieces of the Picturesque's history to consider before heading off to examine various photographic and other documents in British institutions. These include the conception of space as a flexible medium, perspective points as a indication of cultural events or thinking, and possibly a look at surface texture and detail as a point for photography's departure from historical Picturesque rules. These are all just thinking-out-loud, but I've done of lot of thinking in silence and needed to blurt out a snippet or two to get the ball rolling.
Check out Day Twelve gallery.
As we've finished the Wye River tour there are still sites included in the additional journal from edition two which are interesting and certainly were considered and visited by subsequent travelers seeking the Picturesque. Of these, we've managed to see Llanthony, Crickhowell, Raglan, Abergavenny, the Black Mountains, Skenfrith, Hay-on-Wye, and Newport. There are always others, many which we will sadly be unable to visit this trip. Perhaps a sequel or some form of spinoff? After all, Gilpin wrote eight travel journals.
Today we revisited Chepstow to see the Chepstow Racecourse which hosts a Sunday market in the parking lot. With the ruins of Piercefield Park in the near background and Wyndcliff in the distance. The scene is another small saga of the vagaries and effects of time and taste. I bought two cheap watches, since my expensive watch's band continues to break at the most inopportune times. I also got a great deal on socks, so now I don't need to wash any for the rest of the trip.
Afterwards, we headed back to the Black Mountains, driving back up the Wye Valley along with a very obvious glut of tourists driving through the early fall colors on a gorgeous afternoon. We decided to retry our luck with Llanthony Priory since we now had a good map of the area.
Our last trip through Abergavenny was greeted by a rain that rather seemed to be thrown, spit, or slung and not simply dropping to earth. Sheets of droplets would appear from out of nowhere and smack the car, followed by a dry spell only to be repeated over and over. The wind was equally intermittent, not to mention the sunlight. Today was clear and crisp, except for the single cloud which parked over Llanthony for the better part of two hours.
We walked around the Priory (and hotel, farm, and stables) looking for interesting scenes, waiting for the sunshine to return. A variety of opportunities presented themselves including a pet gray parrot, horse-play, and the pub within the converted part of the priory ruins.
The drive home was probably the best in terms of light, sun dodging in and out of long, low clouds that we'd seen. We arrived back in Monmouth in time for dinner at The Punch House situated on the market square where statues of Henry V and Charles Rolls were erected outside the market hall. The sun was just past setting and I silhouetted Rolls figure against the constant flow of traffic through the town centre.
As the trip is now complete, I have several pieces of the Picturesque's history to consider before heading off to examine various photographic and other documents in British institutions. These include the conception of space as a flexible medium, perspective points as a indication of cultural events or thinking, and possibly a look at surface texture and detail as a point for photography's departure from historical Picturesque rules. These are all just thinking-out-loud, but I've done of lot of thinking in silence and needed to blurt out a snippet or two to get the ball rolling.
Check out Day Twelve gallery.
posted by Darryl B. at 3:19 PM
1 Comments:
The day certainly gave you some interesting and fun images to photograph. We all know that opportunities like that don't come our way very often.
Has the correlation between what was once viewed as the picturesque during Gilpin's time, to how we view it today, made a difference in what you have come to appreciate about the aesthetic qualities one normally considers to be picturesque?
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