When the three of us entered Dixon Gallery & Gardens in early September, sunlight was glinting on the leaf-twisted gate we passed through. Two brick columns were joined by a wooden arch with fluted gables on top. From there we emerged into a little sunlit garden with a fountain in the center, a dark globe glowing in its pool. An iron duck spouted a stream from its beak and a lotus flower gleamed in the water.
Over the entire garden grounds of Dixon, the touch of a human gardener could be felt. Here I observed a theme of paradisical beauty, and the secret to it was human control. The little maze of sunlit gardens, between the cusp of civilization and the wilderness, glowed with the beauty of the pastoral ideal—and it was only happening because here humans were in control of nature. Even the tangle of vines and wildflowers were carefully groomed. In the same way, in literature, the man must “rule over” creation in the garden he lives in; the Green Man must be the one to tend to the forest animals; Prospero of Shakespeare’s Tempest must harness the “uncivilized” spirits on an island to maintain order and harmony. Many other pieces of classical literature uphold this belief as well: that harmony between human and nature can exist only if the humans are holding the reins. Humans like to be in control, and perhaps nature was their first object.
