'In England the light presses from above. It is not the clear white light of warmer countries, but it is dominant; there is a glitter at midday on glabrous leaves and lustrous glimmering flowers which drain the life from the colour so that only under a leaden sky or at twilight can a planned effect achieve its fullest value... Take for example, the nebulous shape of a yew on the chalk downs, where it appears sporadically and grows to greater perfection than many evergreens. Against rolling light green grassland it has no connection, no vital link of similarity or even of contrast to weld it to the surrounds. The grass lifts up, the yew tree weighs it down; there is a lack of balance in colours and forms. See the same tree against the jagged whiteness of a chalk-pit, and the aesthetic effect is at once satisfactory.'
This is
Christopher Tunnard, writing with an appealing old-fashioned self-confidence about the aesthetics of landscape in his book
Gardens in the Modern Landscape (1938). He concludes with recommendations that 'the yew tree on a lawn is less powerful emotionally than one placed in relationship to buildings; from the grey stones of a churchyard it draws the necessary illumination to enhance its form.' Soon after writing this Tunnard left the English light behind to take up a post at Harvard, and then after the war he rather drifted away from landscape design, concentrating instead on urban planning.
It may be worth comparing Christopher Tunnard’s comments on the yew and the chalk downs with images described in poems by Edward Thomas:
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When first I came here I had hope,
Hope for I knew not what. Fast beat
My heart at the sight of the tall slope
Of grass and yews, as if my feet
Only by scaling its steps of chalk
Would see something no other hill
Ever disclosed. ...
(Edward Thomas 1916)
‘See the same tree against the jagged whiteness of a chalk-pit, and the aesthetic effect is at once satisfactory.'
The Combe was ever dark, ancient and dark.
Its mouth is stopped with bramble, thorn, and briar;
And no one scrambles over the sliding chalk
By beech and yew and perishing juniper
Down the half precipices of its sides, with roots
And rabbit holes for steps. The sun of Winter,
The moon of Summer, and all the singing birds
Except the missel-thrush that loves juniper,
Are quite shut out. ...
(Edward Thomas 1914)
Thanks, aurelia. And 'The Combe' (the second poem here) ends "But far more ancient and dark / The Combe looks since they killed the badger there, / Dug him out and gave him to the hounds,/ That most ancient Briton of English beasts." Of course the yew tree has rather gloomy associations generally. As Sylvia Plath said, "the message of the yew tree is blackness - blackness and silence."
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