Transition Culture

Timeless Beauty - John Lane (2003)

Timeless Beauty - John Lane. Green Books, Devon. (2003)

John Lane uses this thought-provoking and brave book to argue that we have largely lost contact with the beautiful, and that our society is suffering greatly as a result. Why is so much modern architecture so nerve-janglingly awful, or just plain dull? What effect does this have on us? We live lives surrounded by functional objects bereft of beauty – when did you last see a house built by a mainstream construction company that was so beautiful that it took your breath away? Have you ever seen a mobile phone so exquisite that you will always treasure it? We have lost our way, and the effects of this separation are all too clear. C.F.A. Voysey is quoted as saying ‘ugliness is a poison wherever it is found and harmful to all concerned in its making, as well as in its use, therefore to be spurned at all costs’. James Hillman, again, says ‘the ugly is whatever we no longer notice, the simply boring’.

This book is profound, and asks questions on many levels. Lane looks back through history, arguing that the most beautiful things created by humanity were fashioned as worship to a greater power, be it the great European cathedrals or Buddhist cave paintings. The advent of art as personal expression led to the loss of a higher spiritual purpose, which meant that projects such as the cathedrals which took four generations to complete, will never be seen again. While acknowledging that we are probably the most aesthetically impoverished culture history has yet produced, and that the current environmental crisis is as much a crisis of aesthetics as anything else, he argues passionately that ‘the world will be saved by beauty’. This will be realised by its giving people a reverence, a sense of respect for nature, a sense of the sacred reabsorbed into everyday life.

I drew great strength from this book. Lane argues that, as I have always felt, we need beauty, and that we as permaculture designers, natural builders, gardeners, artists, should always strive for beauty. ‘Every single act’, Lane writes, ‘can add to or detract from the sum total of beauty in our home and district. Those who fail to practice their creativity are not only impoverishing their own existence, they are losing one of the deep springs of our future vitality and hope’.

I did feel that he was on slightly shaky ground when he was enthusing about the things he personally believes to be beautiful. He lists paintings and works of art which he feels to have a ‘timeless beauty’, rather in the same way that writers of fanzines I would have read 15 years ago raved about why the new 7� single from a particular obscure indiepop group was the essential record of the year and encapsulated everything wonderful about life. Is it, at the end of the day, purely personal opinion whether something is beautiful or not, or can some things be in and of themselves, beautiful? I don’t know, but I admire his passion to put the things forward that he does. He certainly succeeds in giving the reader a real sense of reverence for the beautiful, and that although most modern art can be called ‘pioneering’, ‘innovative’ or ‘provocative’, rarely is it truly beautiful.

For me this book will sit snugly on the shelf alongside Christopher Alexander’s ‘A Timeless Way of Building’ and Christopher Day’s collected works. Although relatively little of the book looks at buildings, it did raise the question for me of why is a hand plastered cob wall more beautiful than a skimmed plasterboard one? It comes down to care and attention, to a hand-made quality where love has been put into its creation. Lane’s case for a re-elevation of beauty to a central role in our society made me think about the need for a Slow Building movement, alongside the increasingly popular Slow Food one. When speed and cheapness are our guiding motivation when, as a society, we create shelter, we end up with ugly, soul-less boxes, which fail to enrich the spirit. A Slow Building movement would reintegrate craft and the hand-made, people working with their friends to build gorgeous homes with materials that allow them to express themselves. Houses would be built to last, and would leave a legacy to our grandchildren for which they would thank us. I have built a timber frame house which took eight weeks, and people say “wow! Only took you eight weeks! That’s great…�, whereas I am building a cob house that could take me two years, and which will be infinitely more beautiful, and will last about 500 years longer, but people’s main concern is about speed, “oh that’s very slow…�. When we are creating something beautiful, it can transcend ‘work’; as Richard Jeffries says ‘the hours when the mind is absorbed by beauty are the only hours when we are really alive’.

Rediscovering beauty will re-root our culture in its surroundings, in its heritage, in its place in the landscape. Beauty, Lane writes, “helps us stay alive in the world. It helps us to be true to ourselves. Let us see it restored�. Indeed.