Roger does not think much of the prospect-refuge theory. “It’s a load of shit,” he says with a rapid exhale of breath and cigarette smoke, his eyes darting over the open section of beach and the small thatched huts along the foreshore. “That’s not a symbol … it’s a bloody beach.” He gestures with his cigarette across the strip of startling white sand edged by an azure sea.
Roger and I are sitting in the shade of a sinewy mango tree, occasionally greeting the curious local kids who walk by on their way to a swim at the other end of the beach where the reef juts out into the darker blue water. We are waiting for a group of birders from our expedition trip to come back from their inland jaunt.
The beach is on Owaraha Island in the Solomon Islands. It is stinking hot, so just a hint of boredom makes regaling Roger with some landscape theory seem like a good idea. It isn’t. Roger won’t stand for it. And if Jay Appleton were here, he would most likely be thumped.
English geographer Appleton’s The Experience of Landscape was published in 1975. It is a small book that has had a large impact. It spawned the prospect-refuge theory of human aesthetics, which has had a tenacious hold on landscape theory to this day. Appleton reduces our landscape desires to prospect – our ability to consider opportunity – and refuge – our ability to feel safe. Tracing these desires back to their core, he concludes that even the esoteric ideas of aesthetics have been hard-wired into our survival mechanism.
At the base of Appleton’s theory is the understanding that humanity’s first landscape was the African savannah. Homo sapiens spent a long time learning how to survive in this environment, and the instincts for survival in this landscape have imprinted themselves into our very psychological make-up.
Though humans have moved from the savannah to the city and every other kind of landscape imaginable, including the virtual one, some of these instincts have stuck. They provide us with the essential landscape symbols that can tell us if we are hunters or the hunted.
Appleton’s theory predicts that we are attracted to landscapes that have broad, unclouded vistas and visible spaces for easy refuge in either height (trees) or protection (caves). We crave water, as it is an important element in our survival and attracts prey that we like to eat. To feel comfortable in such a place we need to feel that we are on the edge of it, with our backs protected, and covered from the sky. Out in the open middle is no place to be – which perhaps explains a popular aversion to cricket and why rugby players run fast.
Landscapes that put the observer between the prospect-dominant and refuge-dominant areas will be most appealing, and we look for symbols in the landscape that reinforce these instincts. Beaches with trees have a savannah-like prospect and are good, whereas dark alleyways are not.
Blanket theories give us comfort. Their downside is they can trick us into thinking people and cultures are all the same and that nothing evolves from this fixed point of view. Appleton’s theory is no different. Since our common ancestors left the African savannah, they have adapted to a diverse range of landscapes, from high mountains to steaming jungles. The people of Owaraha adapted to the ocean as part of the greatest expansion of humans into the last habitable landscape on the planet.
Sons and daughters of the Lapita people and the later Austronesians, they inhabited islands that reached as far across the Pacific as Easter Island and as far south as Auckland Island. Their ancestors knew a lot about the ocean and completed journeys that required exceptional lateral thinking and hardiness to achieve. They developed their own sense of what the landscape and the sea were telling them and over 3000 years developed their own ideas about what a beach is for.
Roger is clearly not interested in any of this. I had got as far as the prospect and refuge bit before being shut down in a puff of cigarette smoke. Now, he just says, “This is bloody beautiful … bloody picturesque.”
He makes another of those sweeping arm gestures that encompass the white sand beach, the thatched huts and palm trees. “Looks like a bloody postcard. Bloody marvellous.” The whole scene has Roger in a Tourette’s-like grip. He is happy that the image of a tropical island and the reality of it are matched nicely.
In the swim
Roger’s wife, Elaine, staggers back from her unofficial tour of the village. She is hot and flustered and escorted by a flotilla of small children. “Bugger this heat, I’m off for a swim,” she says with a gasp. She stubs her own cigarette out on the trunk of the mango tree and proceeds to remove her peripheral garments. The heat and the crowd are such that she does not bother with her bathing costume and instead wades into the water with her shorts and T-shirt on.
The children stop chattering and fidgeting. They look shocked. One of the older girls with a whisker of English says, “You not swim here … you swim there.” She gestures to the far end of the beach, where the reef juts out into the darker blue water. The other children, with the synchronicity of reef fish, all gesture to the same far end of the beach, away from the village. Even I join in. “I think you might be better off down there, Elaine …”
“Oh rubbish, I’m too hot to walk all the way down there,” Elaine scoffs. She rolls over and side-strokes her way out from the shore. Within an instant, the kids have all disappeared into the village behind us. In a place where the heat means nothing happens quickly, this is unusual. “That fixed the little buggers,” chortles Roger.
We sit with our backs to the mango tree, our heads covered by the canopy, and watch Elaine swim in the azure water. We are the models for Appleton’s theory. We feel an Appletonian comfort; we have our backs covered and a view of a wide-open space that includes water. We are hardwired to share this landscape, despite our philosophical differences.
Looking from the hubbub of the village to the empty beach in front of us, Roger says, “It’s hard to believe there is no one on the beach … It’s bloody prime real estate.”
“I’m not sure it’s that desirable, Roger,” I reply.
“Well, what do they use the bloody beach for if it is not desirable?” he retorted.
I stroke my chin and look at my feet before I cough out, “The toilet, Roger … they use it as their toilet.”
Roger darts me a look of disbelief. His eyes quickly move to Elaine out there, side-stroking her way up the beach.
His disbelief melts into a grin. He cups his hands to his mouth and yells across the water to her, “You’re swimmin’ in the shitter, love.”
From behind the trees and huts of the village, the children look on with horror.