On the east side of the Upper Belvedere, which was built at the beginning of the 18th century as the summer residence for Prince Eugene of Savoy, is a wall within the niches of which stand antique images of deities. In front of the wall grows a maple hedge that is trimmed in a manner to make it run like a parallel wall alongside the first one. “Windows” are cut into the branches of the hedge at the same height at which the figures stand. Between the maple hedge and the old wall is an approximately 40 cm-wide passage. In terms of landscaping, this passage is quite well fashioned; the only problem is that the maple tends to lean on the wall. The course is just wide enough for a man with a hedge trimmer to come through and manage to clip the rear of the maple wall.
To the human eye, the maple hedge and the wall behind it appear as a uniform unit because they look as if they are fused together. The passage is thus a zone that our mind does not really register and therefore it successfully evades our consciousness. But the chances are that an idea will germinate now and then in this zone, popping up one fine day as a colourful flower in the space of our mind – in the best-case scenario as a lustful thought in which the bleak, wintry world around us here becomes an instant illustration or manifestation of a place of brazen adventure.
First Publication: 30-11-2013
Modifications: