Of all Fay
Godwin's photographs, there is none which more quintessentially
represents longstanding British tradition of viewing the land
while manifesting the appearance of its subject at the moment
of taking. (see Moonlight, Avebury, 1974).
This photograph,
in particular, demolishes at a blow the urbanite's notion that
the works produced by William Blake, Sanuel Palmer, Edward Calvert
and the rest of the Brotherhood of Ancients were, even in their
own day, an exaggerated form of special pleading in the face of
early industrialization; idealized and romanticized beyond
relevance to the issues of the real world. For here it all
is, not far off two centuries later, the moon and the stone;
the flock and the trees; the dwellings tucked down,
inconspicuous yet through their occupants vital to the organization,
organization in the sense of organic patterning, of everything
else present in the picture.
Avebury is one
of the ancient centers of a part of Britain whose antiquity, or
let us say, whose continuity of human usage remains palpable in
marks on the land with origins stretching back to prehistoric
times; and whose earth forces, many claim, are still perceptible
as leylines connecting centers such as Avebury and Stonehenge
with myriad others across the islands. This part of the
country is indeed one of the main sources for the reports of phenomena
that resist mundane explanation, such as UFO sightings, crop circles
and like events. Whether or not one's tendency is to dismiss
speculations on such matters as ridiculously prescientific and
downright superstitious, it would be an unperceptive visitor indeed
who did not recognize the character of atmosphere that even today
survives the worst tourist onslaught, to confer a unique presence
upon Avebury.
Equally, it is
a notable achievement by Godwin, employing her disciplined processes
of photographic documentation, to have succeeded in representing
the nuances of that presence in a single print on the wall;
or even more so, in allowing us to retain them at the further
remove of a book, however well produced, as indeed Land
is. Top speak of photography in terms only of resolution,
of information density, of tonal range, is to suggest a determinate
activity that shows without comment. Perhaps, in relation
to straight photography, to the unmanipulated image, that has
to be true. Perhaps, given that this photograph, with its
delicately interwoven truths, so clearly echoes the presence of
the land at Avebury, it is the balancing of the determinate, of
the concrete, in their many aspects, to an accuracy and a subtlety
that defy definition, which indicates one of the doorways through
which photography is enabled to pass from the ordinary to the
magical, and is exactly the measure of Godwin's attainment.
Until recently,
the view thus far formulated, or something like it, would have
done as basis for a judgment of Godwin that accepted her work
at face value; as photography excellently located within
the tradition of aesthetic landscape. Thus, pointing to
a concept of the photographs as bounded by the notions that they
are historically informed, visually refined and of a poetic which
reflects the spirity of place. Another cast of mind, seeking
for a judgment of a more cynical nature, might perhaps see Godwin
as someone working, wittingly or not, towards support for the
less favorably perceived consequences of the heritage industry,
that is to say, for denial by concealment of the transformation,
commercialization and eventual erosion of the places it professes
to nurture. After all, Avebury may be less ground down and
fought over, especially in the literal sense, than Stonehenge,
but it still incorporates museum, restaurant and other facilities
that are not even hinted as in the photograph; though any
who might seek to use such arguments against Godwin's work should
be aware that Land also assembles imagery very different
from Moonlight, Avebury, dealing with issues of exploitation
and industrial damage; albeit with the possibility of a
suggestion, in the way in which the material is associated, that
all things pass, and that the land will heal.
It is only in
the context of the 1990 book, Our forbidden land that everything
becomes absolutely clear and incontrovertible. Godwin's
work there is an unequivocal, impassioned account of the effects
of the closure of vast tracts of countryside for commerical, venal
reasons, such as the rearing of animals and birds merely to shoot
them. We see the final logic of the Highland Clearances,
in concert with the destruction of the land by those who occupy
it without regard for their longer-term responsibilites for its
stewardship, on behalf of the wider population now, and in the
future.
At a stroke,
Godwin has changed the context in which her work is to be seen.
She has done it retrospectively, as well as prospectively, for
Our forbidden land makes it impossible that we will ever
be able to look at any of her photoraphs again without being aware
of the passion which informs her output. Nothing is lost
of the beauty and subtlety of the Avebury half light: if
anything, we gain intensity, for the experience of the new work
makes us savor the photograph of that unsullied moment, down to
the last detail, obsessively, noting how it was, hoping that it
still is, and praying that it yet will be; despite the worst
efforts of the barbarians, more often witless than unwitting,
whom Godwin now reminds us are surging round the gate.
Whether events
turn out so that we may continue to see this image as an outburst
of lyrical praise for our iheritance, and was song raised in its
defence, or whether eventually we must recognize it an an elegy
for the passing of that which can never be regained; the
connectiion between Godwin's vision and that of William Blake
and his friends is made clear. They and we have the same
battle to fight. The difference is that the outcomes they
predicted, are now movintg towards completion at a landslide rate.
How many more Aveburys will be there, perfect under future moons:
The answer to
that question depends in part upon the extent to which her viewers
allow themselves to understand how Godwin has completed the picture,
and respond with sensitivity to the education in the politics
of land use which she so powerfully offers them though her photographic
vision.
Philip
Stokes, essay in St James Modern Masterpieces, 1998
