A Revolutionary Arcadia

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Apollon Terroriste: Ian Hamilton Finlay (1925-2006), in Little Sparta Sculpture Garden, Dunsyre, Pentland Hills, Lanarkshire: photo by yellow book, 2 September 2007

Apollon Terroriste: Ian Hamilton Finlay, in Little Sparta Sculpture Garden, Dunsyre, Pentland Hills, Lanarkshire: photo by photoeali, 28 July 2010

Apollon Terroriste: Ian Hamilton Finlay, in Little Sparta Sculpture Garden, Dunsyre, Pentland Hills, Lanarkshire: photo by photoeali, 3 July 2009




Apollon Terroriste: Ian Hamilton Finlay, in Little Sparta Sculpture Garden, Dunsyre, Pentland Hills, Lanarkshire: photo by onceawildchild, 31 May 2009




It is not true
that the blade was terrible:
it was Terrible.

_________


In the first chapters
of the Revolution
when the ribbons
were still on the haycocks...

_________


You cannot step
into the same Revolution
twice.

_________


"Who are these men
who have no streets
named after them?"

-- French person of 1987, on
The Committee of Public Safety, 1794.

_______


The French Revolution
was something other
than the French nation
on the psychoanalyst's couch.

________


Three Parties
in The Convention:
The Mountain, The Plain,
The Ravine.

_______


In the Picturesque landscape
of the Revolution
the wildest of the banditti
were all ex-lawyers.

_______


For the best of the Jacobins
the Revolution was intended
as a pastoral whose
Virgil was Rousseau.

_______


Revolutions conceived in the fields
are very different from
Revolutions conceived in the cellar.

Ian Hamilton Finlay: texts from Revolutionary Pursuits (1987)

The present order is the disorder of the future -- Saint-Just: Ian Hamilton Finlay, in Ian Hamilton Finlay and Sue Finlay, Little Sparta Sculpture Garden, Dunsyre, Pentland Hills, Lanarkshire: photo by onceawildchild, 31 May 2009

The present order is the disorder of the future -- Saint-Just (with view on the Pentland Hills from the upper reaches of Ian Hamilton Finlay's garden at Little Sparta): Ian Hamilton Finlay, in Ian Hamilton Finlay and Sue Finlay, Little Sparta Sculpture Garden, Dunsyre, Pentland Hills, Lanarkshire: photo by Ergonomik, 21 August 2009

Ian Hamilton Finlay: Plaque 1, Little Sparta: photo by Flora Laura Hammond, 3 July 2011

Ian Hamilton Finlay: Plaque 2, Little Sparta: photo by Flora Laura Hammond, 3 July 2011

Ian Hamilton Finlay: Plaque 3, Little Sparta: photo by Flora Laura Hammond, 3 July 2011

Ian Hamilton Finlay: Arcadia Column, Little Sparta: photo by Flora Laura Hammond, 3 July 2011

This countrie Arcadia among all the prouinces of Greece, hath euer beene had in singular reputation: partly for the sweetnesse of the ayre, and other natural benefites, but principally for the well tempered minds of the people, who (finding that the shining title of glorie so much affected by other nations, doth in deed helpe little to the happinesse of life) are the onely people, which as by their Iustice and pruidence geue neither cause nor hope to their neyghbours to annoy them, so are they not sturred with false praise to trouble others quiet, thinking it a small reward for the wasting of their owne liues in rauening, that their posteritie should long liue after saie, they had done so. Euen the Muses seeme to approue their good determinatio[n], by chosing this countrie for their chiefe repairing place, & by bestowing their perfections so largely here, that the very shepheards haue their fancies lifted to so high conceits, as the learned of other nations are content both to borrow their names, and imitate their cunning.

-- from The Countesse of Pembrokes Arcadia, written by Sir Philippe Sidnei, London 1590. Book One.