{"id":3245,"date":"2010-09-14T18:19:51","date_gmt":"2010-09-14T22:19:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/?p=3245"},"modified":"2010-09-14T18:19:52","modified_gmt":"2010-09-14T22:19:52","slug":"a-ramble-in-st-james-park","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/2010\/09\/a-ramble-in-st-james-park\/","title":{"rendered":"A Ramble in St. James Park"},"content":{"rendered":"

A few days ago, I took a stroll through one of London\u2019s finest acres of greenery, St. James Park. \u00a0\u00a0As to be expected with any of London\u2019s parks, St. James was gorgeous.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0A quintessentially English garden, St. James consists overgrown grasses, a long serpentine lake and plentiful randomized outcroppings of shrubs, bushes and trees in place of bright flowers and orderly manicured rows of plants typical of the English picturesque movement of the late 18th<\/sup> Century.<\/p>\n

Typically, gardens of the latter variety exist on the continent, where gardens, such as the famous gardens of Versailles and many others, exhibit the ornate, extravagant qualities of brightly coloured flowers placed in neat rows and circles.\u00a0 The picturesque movement moved away from this doctrine and is seen throughout St. James.\u00a0 In the park\u2019s overgrown grasses and serpentine lake, a random, natural effect is created emblemizing the picturesque\u2019s primary goal of replicating nature; an upholding of nature\u2019s wilderness and natural beauty over the patterns and uniformity of continental gardens.<\/p>\n

This is not to say, however, that St. James is not just as meticulously groomed as the gardens of Versailles.\u00a0 St. James random look intended to replicate nature is neither easily accomplished nor maintained.\u00a0 Countless effort goes into St. James Park by its numerous caretakers, as is true with all English gardens.\u00a0 At the entrance to every one of London\u2019s parks or green squares, there is a key to the garden demonstrating precisely the garden architect\u2019s intent for the park and which areas contain which types of greenery.<\/p>\n

However, there is a sense of hypocrisy to the picturesque.\u00a0 With the effort that goes into making the park look natural, it is still a manmade area and not even the most gifted of garden architects can escape that fact.\u00a0 St. James\u2019 long winding serpentine lake may appear natural, but if one looks at the banks, they would see the concrete walls that enclose it, blatantly marking it an object of man\u2019s creation.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the picturesque quality of St. James and countless other gardens, both public and at the homes of the English, is another example of Kate Fox\u2019s English hypocrisy.\u00a0 The English seem to enjoy the idea of walking amidst untouched nature and seem willing to ignore the fact that their parks are endlessly manicured to achieve its natural look.\u00a0 Either way, after spending a glorious afternoon within the park\u2019s beautiful acres, I\u2019m not complaining.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A few days ago, I took a stroll through one of London\u2019s finest acres of greenery, St. James Park. \u00a0\u00a0As to be expected with any of London\u2019s parks, St. James was gorgeous.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0A quintessentially English garden, St. James consists overgrown grasses, a long serpentine lake and plentiful randomized outcroppings of shrubs, bushes and trees in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":371,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6696],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2010-luke"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/371"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3245"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3245\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}