The Formal Garden: Traditions of Art and Nature - Hardcover

Laird, Mark

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0500015422 ISBN 13: 9780500015421

Publisher: Thames & Hudson, 1992

Synopsis

The Idea of the formal garden evokes clear and specific images: the Renaissance symmetry of the Villa Lante; the knots and mazes of Hampton Court; the immense vistas of Versailles. But how well founded are our preconceptions in fact?
In this major study new research combines with glorious illustrations to demonstrate for the first time how historic gardens were originally conceived, and how they have changed. The gardens today are seen to be a fascinating overlay through time of changing ideas and attitudes. The evidence unearthed suggests that formality is the central and enduring tradition of Western garden design, that it was still vigorously alive in the eighteenth century, and that its relation to the landscape garden has been consistently misjudged. In some gardens, the original planting has disappeared, while others have been meticulously restored; indeed, traditional categories prove insufficient to describe them, for a "Baroque" garden may actually be a re-interpretation from the 1930s.
In the course of his wide-ranging investigation, Mark Laird draws on archival sources - maps, plans, published and unpublished descriptions - and his own horticultural expertise to look afresh at over fifty of the finest surviving gardens in Europe and the United States. All the major styles - Renaissance, Mannerist, Baroque, Regence, Rococo - are represented, along with nineteenth- and twentieth-century revivals.
The author is one of the most original garden historians writing today, and in Hugh Palmer, the photographer, he has found an eye and knowledge to match his reputation. The sumptuous color photographs are supplemented by over one hundred rare historical plans and views to show how the gardens changed through history. Additional reference material includes a gazetteer of sites, a glossary of planting terms and full bibliographies.

About this title

From Library Journal

We all have an immediate image of the formal garden as a triumph of man's architectural designs over unruly Nature, but this is not as precise a distinction as one would think. The restored formal garden reflects original planning of the past and modifications resulting from later interpretations. Drawing upon a wide array of archival material, horticultural historian Laird explores gardens both as they were and as they are. The wide diversity of formal gardens, from country to country and era to era, becomes immediately apparent in the excellent illustrations and descriptions; the interplay of nature and art, of freedom and formality, echo the role that gardens play in society. This book is a fine example of scholarly research that is both a source for further study and an inspiration to gardeners. Recommended for large libraries or for those serving a gardening community.
- Paula Frosch, Metropolitan Museum of Art Lib., New York
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Thames & Hudson
• Publication date: 1992
• ISBN 10: 0500015422
• ISBN 13: 9780500015421
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 240