A lecture of the narrative and symbolic aspects of the Garden.

01. "L'Entré au Jardin" French print The Gardens of Ermonenville, published Paris 1788

 

02 BOULOGNE J.C.Lewen engraving of "Plan du Boulingrin avec les Arcades" undated c 1730 28 x 53 cms

A. GEOMETRY AND THE GARDEN

01 geometrical garden design from D.Laris, Le tresor der parterres de l'univers , Geneva 1629

02 Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe, his last major campaign, the Moody Gardens - Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe, providing designs for Classical Rome, Islam, Mughal India and Medieval Europe sections of the Moody Gardens , 1985  

B. The Garden as Entertainment

03 from Stephen Switzer's An Introduction to a General System of Hydrostaticks and Hydraulicks, printed by Astley, Austen and Gilliver in 1729. The added element of water in a garden was not merely decorative - it sprang up and soaked the unwary, it operated automata within, say, a grotto. Its general design and management were complex affairs and much treated in dedicated monographs.

04. frontispiece to A Trip to Vaux-Hall, or a general satyre on the times by Hercules Mac-Sturdy, London 1737. The image makes great play of the painter Francis Hayman's decorated Supper Boxes in this celebrated Pleasure Garden.
Of the type, Jellicoe calls Vauxhall "clearly the most important and influential garden" (The Oxford Companion to Gardens, p.441. The garden was heavily wooded with a real sense of the pastoral, and with extensive features such as concert facilities and dining chambers. At times great painted canvasses depicting rural vistas were erected at appropriate places to prolong the illusion. The theatrical lighting of the pleasure garden demands a separate study, but added much to the general culture of romance, even debauchery on a grand scale.

GARDEN AS PARADISE - PARADISE AS GARDEN

01 John Parkinson , Paradisi in sole paradisus terrestris ,London 1629 - this is a famous early book on horticulture and also made celebrated Parkinson's own garden in Long Acre which provided many of the observations and suggestions in the book. He was apothecary to James I and died in 1650.


02 Women in the Garden an engraving from an unknown book dedicated to the Culture of the Persians some way after the original Persian illumination  

03 Hanes Fig Leaf briefs , US advertisement dated June 1950 (detail)  

04 "The Expulsion from the Garden", from Edward Burne-Jones, The Beginnings of the World, Chiswick Press 1902. The drawings were originally intended for an edition of a Biblia Innocentium abandoned after Morris death in 1896. The wilderness outside the garden walls, and the sense of loss is at the heart of much garden design.
 
04 a plan of the Garden of Eden from The Gentleman's Magazine , frontispiece 1736.

THE FLORILEGUM An Anthology of Flowers

01. Johannes de Bry, Florilegium Renovatum et Auctum, Frankfurt 1641 the panel upper left reads HORTUS A MAGNIFICO ET NOBIL This is the Garden of Johan Schwinden.

02 Daniel Rabel, Theatrum Florae in quo ex toto orbe selecti mirabiles venustiores as praecepui flores tanquam ab ipsus deae sinu proferuntor, Paris 1622, and one of the great Florilegium . The highly coloured/wrought titlepage is signed by "Guillel mus Theodoruspinxit [painted] 1624".  


03. Emanuel Sweert, FLORILEGIUM... Frankfurt 1612. The author was a Dutch florist, once Praefectus of the Gardens of Emperor Rudolf II. As was to be expected from anyone associated with the Emperor, Sweert's conception of the Garden contains many esoteric associations - the Sun and Moon - the Dry and the Wet - fruition and flowering as a Breathing from on High.

GARDENS IN BOOKS

 

titlepage to R.Austin, A Treatise of Fruit Trees, Robinson Oxford 1657.

an illustration from James Gardiner, Rapin of Gardens , a Latin poem in 4 Books, englished by Mr.Gardiner dated c1706.

titlepage to John Parkinson, Paradisi in Sole Paradisus Terrestris, or a Garden of All Sorts of Pleasant Flowers , Lownes and Young London 1629.

Otto Brunfels, Herbarum Vivae Eicones ad Naturae Imitationem a German Herbal printed in 1541/2,and the examples, it was emphasised, were drawn from nature.

Jos.Blagrave, The Epitome of the Art of Husbandry, London 1685.

J.Worlidge, Systema Agriculture. .. London 1669, with engraving by Van Hove. the result of perfect husbandry...

from an eighteenth century book of landscape views, Amsterdam c1720. a graphic fusing of the geometric and the realistic from A.-J. Dezallier D'Argenville, La Theorie et la Pratique du Jardinage ,Paris, 1713.

from Romeyn de Hooghe's book describing the celebrated gardens of Het Loo , designed on the estates of King William III, published in Amsterdam, 1786.

Sociable avenues at Versailles; Gilles Demortain, from Les Plans, profils, et elevations des villes et chateau de Versailles, Paris, undated [ 1715 and after]

 

 

 

NARRATIVE ASPECTS
from G. N. and A. Perelle, The Principal Monuments, Parks and Residences of Paris
Paris 1650 - 1680 the tree as fountain There is something wondrous about the frozen formality of the designed and well kept park. Here is the late and much lamented Busch Garden, Pasadena, endowed and opened to the public by the great brewer Adolphus Busch of Anheuser Busch. It has been divided and subdivided but sections still constitute part of the local backgardens. From a postcard c1910.
 
 
engraving "A View in Kensington Gardens" 10 x 14cms The fashionable pairs perambulate around that most fashionable of London parks. c1780

 

Something Strange in the Garden
Geometry and Other Delights in Drawing the Garden
 engraving by J.Serle, Alexander Pope's Garden at Twickenham, 1725.
 
engraving by J.Serle, Chinoiserie in the garden of Rambouillet as reproduced in Nouveau Jardins a la Mode, 1784, and a typical coloration of the garden in a fashionable style.
 
from E.A.Brooke, The Gardens of England, 1956-7 Elveston Castle Gardens, near Derby 1840's.
 
 
The Islamic Garden from a 16th century manuscript. one of the 24 designs for ornamental formal gardens from Daniel Marot, Oeuvres...., The Hague, 1703. This volume includes four plates, depicting a garden dedicated to each of the Four Elements.

 from Salomon Kleiner's Representation des Animaux de la menagerie de SAS Monsieur Le Prince Eugene Francois ...1734.
 

T.C.Lewen prospect of the Hermitage c1750 30 x 39cms
 
Della Bella's etching after the colossal statue of Appennino in the Gardens of Pratolino, published in Bernardo Sgrilli's description of the gardens and fountains there, Florence 1742, before the Gardens were completely remodeled during the nineteenth century. The figure looms large in many illustrations of the waking giant. See J.N.Paton, The Ancient Mariner .
 

PEOPLE IN A GARDEN
 
  The gardener rewarded by the presence of mythological entities in the garden, from William Hanbury's, A Complete Body of Planting and Gardening, 1769 - 1773. Hanbury was Rector of Church Langton and started his garden and arboretum as a fund raising endeavour for the Parish. The book despite the mythological overtones, is a practical account of his own experiences, including those as a pioneer of exotic plants and trees imported into the UK. The Goddess of the Fruitful and a gang of putti fresh from the Harvest remind the industrious plantsman of the rich rewards that await.
 

from Breughel's sequence of prints The Four Seasons here "Spring" tidying and planting in the Garden 22 x 29cms engraving 1570
 
THE TIGER BALM GARDEN Singapore
 
 
This highly artificial construction was paid for and donated to the people of the City by the manufacturer of TIGER BALM It shows the stuff of myths - and worship -
monsters and gods trees and pathways in a most original narrative...
THE SYMBOLIC GARDEN
 
Tychoe Brahe's House and Gardens at Hven from Johannes Blau Atlas Major Volume II Amsterdam 1667 the layout of house, gardens and observatory served a complex symbolic function.
 
"The Priapic Garden" from Sebastian Brandt's edition of Virgil , published by Reinhardt de Grunningen in Strasbourg,in 1502. Called by G.Redgrave ( Bibliographia, II 59-60)" one of the most wonderful illustrated books of all time... There is a vigour and directness of purpose in these illustrations , combined with a delightful medievalism, which is in every case most fascinating and which reveals an entirely new motive in the designer's art, namely, to tell the whole of the story." This is from the edition with 100 specially commissioned woodcuts.
 
M.Bettini, Apiaria universae philosophiae mathematicaea... Bolgna,1642,an astonishing compilation of intriguing and entertaining mathematical propositions, and including a section of machines of perpetual motion. The volume is beautifully and copiously illustrated with over 500 engravings. The titlepage provides a fantastic garden in which stand geometrical propositions. J.H.Esq., Dodona's Grove, London 1640, titlepage
 
BACK


FILM COMPILATION FOR THE LECTURE

1. The Draftsman's Contract , directed by Peter Greenaway; the contract to draw the house and lands.


2. Last Year at Marienbad, directed by Alain Resnais, the melancholy poetry of the gardens abnd the disputed meaning of the sculpture; the pair meet indors in front of a 17th century print of the self same gardens.


3. Roy Strong idles through Hampton Court , and compares it with its 17th century shape and form. (2 sequences).


4. William and Mary's garden Het Loo also designed by Daniel Marot. 1686-1695 now completely restored.


5. The Gardens of the Medici ; the Boboli Gardens Florence, begun 1549, completed c 1690.The Villa d'Este, Cernobbio, Lake Como for Cardinal Gallio, c1570. and the bizarre features of Villa Lante.


6. Burle Marx , the Farzenda Vargem Grande, water gardens and the relationship of the garden to the landscape beyond.Brazil.

7. Dame Elizabeth Crowe talks about her pioneering work adapting tree planting to the contours of the landscape for the Forestry Commission.


8. Return to Burle Marx talking about the quality of light in the garden. The noises of the Frogs.

9. Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe, the doyen of British garden designers (1900- ); his first professional commission at Ditchley Park . terrace and formal gardens.Design on a grand scale.


10. Ian Hamilton Finlay , his Scottish Garden with emblems and monuments devoted to the idea of the garden. Little Sparta near Dunsyre in the Pentland Hills.


11. Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe, his last major campaign, the Moody Gardens
Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe, design for Classical Rome, Islam, Mughal India
and Medieval Europe sections of the Moody Gardens , 1985
 

 

BOOKLIST FOR BEGINNERS

Ronald Paulson, Emblem and Expression, Meaning in English Art of the Nineteenth Century , Thames & Hudson London 1975.See particularly The Poetic Garden.


Christopher Thacker, The History of Gardens, Croom Helm London 1979. The best general study.


Jellicoe, Goode and Lancaster, The Oxford Companion to Gardens , comprehensive, delightful and a solace for my old age.


Roy Strong, The Renaissance Garden in England, Thames and Hudson L 1979 Batey and Lambert, The English Garden Tour , Murray London 1990


Jane Brown, The Art and Architecture of English Gardens Rizzoli NY 1989.

MOODY GARDENS The general plan of site.
 
1. Primeval forest, wild animals and Eden.
2. Classical Rome; Islam; Mughal India; Medieval Europe.
3.The Italian sixteenth century and the French seventeenth century.
4. The English nineteenth century.
5. The English Eighteenth Century, Capability Brown.
6. The English Eighteenth Century, Capability Brown.
7. European eighteenth century, with partof China.
8. The eighteenth century; the classical, the Romantic.
9. Russian Chinoiserie, E W divide, part of japan.
10. The approach to China.
11. China, garden and landscape of Buddha.
12. China, gardens of the Dragon Temple.
13. China the landscape of Buddha.
14. The primeval forest with part of Japan.
For the Moody Gardens see Jane Brown above. The Moody Gardens, Galveston Texas was planned June 1985, and is informed by Susan and Geoffrey Jellicoe's book The Landscape of Man (1975) .
 

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