NATURE AFIELD

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23044, 21 November 1936, Page 18

NATURE AFIELD

ELEMENTS OF SCENIC CHARM By Andrew Southland The present generation of New Zealand landscape-painters deserves credit for extending the conception of the “ typical ” New Zealand scene beyond the conventional portrayals that adorn the walls of the tourist agencies. There is no reason why our scenery should be perpetuated, here and overseas, by appalling repetition of stereotyped and garish posters depicting the stock attractions of the country—Maoris, geysers and mountains. Such reiteration is apt to defeat its own ends. There is a positive risk of over-advertising Mitre Peak in our currency and postage stamps to the point where the prospective traveller imagines that he has already seen it in the sublime and austere reality of its greatness, whereas he has merely acquired a postcard acquaintance with it. This is enough, unless he is able to discriminate between a picture and its original, to file Mitre Peak in the category of the Pyramids and Niagara; places to taken in “ some day.” Meanwhile he is busy looking for the places that have not been spoiled by publicity; places that appeal through their absolute novelty (thereby flattering his vanity as a discoverer) and not as a scheduled tourist. This attitude to travel is just as logical and inevitable as the attitude of a child towards a picture book. It is the first, and not the hundredth, impression that counts. WHAT THE TOURIST EXPECTS—AND SEES The scenic beauties of New Zealand are largely local in character, and in such closely accessible variety as to surpass anything of kindred interest over an equal area elsewhere in the world. This, in mere print, is the message that our tourist agencies should noise abroad, leaving to the tourists themselves the gratification of discovering what is so easily within their reach without having the story or picture anticipated, and possibly falsified by indiscreet publicity. The research and energy expended in designing posters would be far better diverted to ensuring the amenities of actual travel; everything that could be done to ensure that our boast of accessibility is not limited to the speciously abbreviated mileage of the route maps. One infrequently hears a complaint—rarely a criticism—of New Zealand scenery; but many visitors consider the tedium of local travel and accommodation quite incommensurate with the wonders they have seen, and it is obvious that their subsequent praise will be qualified by a “Delightful, my dear, but. . . The preliminary to these delights—a month’s voyage, which is a rest-cure to some, and an ordeal by water to others —is beyond our betterment or control; but bearing in mind J ''e claims of New Zealand as compared with what other countries have to offer, many travellers leave these shores with the conviction that this “ Gem' of' the Pacific ” has yet to be cut, and its many facets polished before its beauties are sufficient to command further admiration. One feels, too, the disquieting conviction that, if the tourist traffic is so valu»able a source of profit to a country, there are those among our visitors who could make these islands the “ show country ” of the world within 20 years of occupation and development. It is perhaps uncharitable, yet perfectly natural, to hope that such exploitation may long be deferred. THE LAND WE LIVE IN Nor, failing a remunerative influx of visitors, is there any reason to advise New Zealanders to see their own country first. Within their own frontiers New Zealanders combine holiday-making and travel to an extent that is only realised by outsiders. The advice to see their ow r n country is stale and obvious. The mere seeing of a country as a fleeting spectacle is nothing—at most it is only a change of air—to those who only see. And here again the moving picture, with the added refinements of sound and colour, is more active in its final appeal than is generally suspected. New Zealand, notwithstanding the Maori-and-geyser type of publicity, is a land of localities, infinite in diversity of appeal according to local influences that defy analysis. Some of these peculiarities are implicit in the atmosphere of a given place, and must exert a powerful spell over a susceptible spirit. Such influences, felt in the abstract, are extraordinarily elusive and difficult to define, yet we are fully aware of their subtle potency, amounting at times almost to a morbid fascination. FORCES IN CONFLICT One need not travel far to verify such phenomena; no need, certainly, to heed unduly the ingenious blandishments of the railway ser-. vice. Few. localities in New Zealand, for instance, hold a deeper and more pervading sense of individuality than the boldly-indented coast that trends from the heights of St. Clair towards the massive promontory of Blackhead, a brief hour’s walk from the centre of the city, with its tourist agencies and polychromatic appeals to the stay-at-homes. There is nothing violently spectacular in the prospect; nothing to justify publicity on the score of a purely scenic appeal. The charm —or fascination—of the place is not to be appreciated by a cursory glance from the roadside, or even during a cross-country walk, with its attendant distractions. If asked offhand to define this charm, one would be puzzled to say quite honestly what constituted its chief elements; but, looking seaward across the undulating fields, some of them tilled, others lying fallow, and most of them clothed in lush summer pasture, fragrant with myriad spikes of sweet vernal grass; a half-dozen skylarks carrolling in a cloud-dappled but clear sky; blackbirds chuckling in the gorse hedges; an occasional red butterfly drifting across the green sward; black and gold-banded humble bees clambering over the full-blown heads of clover; sleek, well-conditioned dairy cattle,- their motley colours contrasting brightly with the green of their surroundings; bulging cumulus clouds hanging low, and mottling the hillsides with slowly creeping shadows; all these things, and many other features of a peaceful landscape are absorbed by the eye, filling the beholder with a sense of harmony in keeping with the atmosphere of quiet and well-being about him. It is, as Stephen Graham so finely said, “ Nature consecrated by man’s habitation ” to a degree rarely achieved. It was man who brought the colourful dairy stock, the singing skylark, the grass, and even the roving humble bees to the scene, all unthinking and uncaring that one day, such as this, they might delight the eye of a casual wanderer. As in many a lesser mastehpiece, however, it is the background of the picture that dominates the whole and provides the element of fascination which no amount of sophistry can dispel nor reconcile with the Arcadian setting of the land-

scape. The sea, restless and devouring, its immensity lost-in haze beyond the horizon, stretches interminably southward from the green lip of the land. Its baleful note, rising from the base of the pallid sandstone cliffs, warns us that inch by inch and foot by foot its work is nrogressing, and that one day these pleasant fields must crumble and vanish before the onset of the tireless waters. The knowledge that such a calamity is inevitable saddens us; we crave for permanence—eternity, even. We have yet to learn, from the skylark and the vagrant humble bee, to live for the hour while the hour is pleasant. Sorrow and wisdom to-day, as when the Preacher spoke, are still with us.