Post 10

The garden style that resonated the most with me was the Roman gardens. The Roman gardens were beautiful, often peristyle gardens that were usually a place of relaxation for Romans. I love the concept and ideas of Roman gardens and have spent a total of 2 months in Italy and I loved the gardens I have encountered during my travels. I have studied Italian Renaissance art as well and there are many parallels in each art form as well as the gardens are portrayed a lot in the painting and artworks.

Another reason I love the Roman gardens is due to the idea of "Otium."I believe we all need to have time to think and reflect on life and the arts in gardens. This is a proactive way to spend your leisurely time and to promote relaxation. I also believe it was this philosophy that helped attribute to their rich culture. The Roman garden was not only a place for relaxation but it was also a place of learning. Many of the gardens had murals and statues that represented religious teachings as well as brought in an artistic element to the garden. The statues were usually Greek and represented a mythological figure. These statues were also a good way to show different art forms and styles around the world.

The romans also used other garden features besides statues such as water features and trellises. These add extra artistic elements, which only added to the beauty of these gardens. The gardens usually consisted of garden bed, which were filled with flowers from the region and surround by trimmed bushes. The combination of garden and culture along with religion and not to mention the aesthetically pleasing quality of the gardens are what resonated the strongest with me personally.

If you want to learn more about Roman gardens visit: http://www.lifeinitaly.com/garden/roman-garden.asp

Sources 

http://romacitizens.blogspot.com/2011/04/subura-community-gardens-now-free.html

http://imgarcade.com/1/ancient-roman-gardens/

http://blogs.getty.edu/iris/archaeologist-kathryn-gleason-on-roman-gardens/

http://bonvoyage-travelling.blogspot.com/2013/02/villa-borghese-gardens-rome-italy.html

Post 9

Gertrude Jekyll and Edwin Lutyens were two brilliant minds and gardeners who came together to form a partnership that would largely influence the arts and crafts movement. This movement came about out of a need to stray from traditional Victorian style gardening as well as from the industrialized London lifestyle. This approach was naturalistic combined with a high level of craftsmanship.

            Jekyll grew up in London and it was this childhood home that inspired her to start designing gardens. Jekyll was also trained professionally as a painter and because of this she had an understanding of how colors were suppose to play together. This allowed her to excel in combining colors and plants in painting like ways.

            Edwin Lutyens, like Jekyll, grew up around his passion. He was always sketching and drawing the landscape around his home. This passion grew into a business and he became one of the most well-known and greatest British architects. The pair took both of their talents and collaborated them to create outstanding gardens.

            Their gardens inspired a whole new generation of gardens. When they designed together they did it only for a specific locations. Their gardens usually contain certain content like rectangular flower borders and drifts. Jekyll was particularly fond of an herbaceous border and is accredited for its popularity.

            One of their most well known collaborations was the Hestercombe house. This house was known for it’s bold patterned layout and the flower details. The garden uses contrast and patterns as well as a water garden and a pergola to created a harmony of wild and tame, structured and natural and is a great representation of the arts and crafts garden.

For more information please visit : http://www.the-secretgardens.co.uk/lutyens-jekyll/

Picture 1: http://www.edinburgharchitecture.co.uk/edwin-lutyens-house 

Picture 2: http://www.tustinlandscaping.com/16.html

Picture 3: http://jimtheobscuredotcom.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/munstead-plan1.jpg

Picture 4: http://blogmedia.designpublic.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/gjtwo.jpg
Picture 5: http://ookaboo.com/o/pictures/picture/13341964/The_Great_plat_in_Hestercombe_Gardens_de

Blog Post 8

With the Victorian villa garden came about the new idea of art and nature coexisting in contrast to art competing against nature. Most parks were adorned by terraces and formal feature; in the Victorian gardens the gardens were adorned with geometry and curves.

            The Victorian garden was centered around showing education, wealth, possessions fashion and taste. Shrubs were formed as a formal element as well as emperor foundation and conservatory/glasshouse shown as a star feature. The conservatory allowed for exotic plants to grown and gave rise to the demand of exotic plants/flowers from all over the world.

            In addition to the formal features of the gardens were the features of informal. The informal gardens consisted of trees scatter about a curved rivers as well as the quintessential rockwork. Rockwork is the arrangement of rocks into an artistic element. The elements were supposed to mimic something that could’ve come about from nature but instead were man made. This concept of nature touched by man, but it not being obvious, was the beauty of the informal gardens. 

            The Victorian gardens were privately owned gardens that had employed a gardener to shape and design the garden in the above stated style. The commonalities between the villa gardens are what stringed them together, as well as the Victorian style. These commonalities consisted of a formal garden close to the house, formal features such as flower bedding, sculptures and parterres. The farther away from the house one wandered the garden turned more informal as described above.

            Inspirations for these gardens came from all over the gardening world. The gardens grew from the formal inherited gardens, such as Capability Browns. A good example of this is the Chatsworth gardens. In the Chatsworth gardens formal and informal gardens came together as one.

For more information visit: http://www.chatsworth.org/attractions-and-events/garden

Picture 1 and 4: http://www.bigginhall.co.uk/chatsworth-c42.html

Picture 2: http://www.lookandlearn.com/history-images/XB171403/Making-repairs-to-the-Great-Conservatory-at-Chatsworth?img=7&search=19th+Century+building

Picture 3: https://vision.eng.shu.ac.uk/mmvl/viewfinder/image_chatsworth_garden.html

Picture 5: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/564849978234566824/

Blog Post 7

            Green spaces are scattered all throughout Copenhagen, in fact the city has made it so it’s citizens will always be within a 15 minute walk from a garden. A lot of these urban green spaces date back to the 19^th century, and are molded into the city and landscape of Copenhagen. These green spaces that surround Copenhagen used to be part of a defensive mechanism for the city used in the 17^th, 18^th and the early half of the 19^th century. However as peace fell upon the city and the cities population increased, these gardens, known as the fortification ring, were given to the city in 1868. The city used this space for city expansion as well as parkland. In 1872 the city developed the area into 3 parks. Sadly, only two remain today but they are used daily by the citizens of Copenhagen.

                                      18th century layout of Copenhagen 

You can walk into any of these green spaces today and see them being enjoyed by the citizens of Copenhagen. Children play in the fields, people come to eat their lunch and most flock there on the few sunny days in hopes of catching some of the suns rays. The parks range in size and use as well. Some parks are small, intimate and its main purposes are recreational, such as Orestdsparken. This park is designed similarly to that of an English garden. There are expansive water features surrounded by grass, paths that lead you throughout the garden where you can observe plants and flowers as well as statues. The Danes, however keep their touch with statues of notable Dane and cafes and restaurants lining the park.  

                                                         Orestdsparken

Others are expansive and have educational components built in such as the botanical gardens. The founder of Carlsberg Brewery, J.C Jacobsen, paid for the botanical garden. It is used for research and education as well as public viewing and pleasure. Outside of the Palm House its self are large expansive areas of grass with a rock and succulent garden as well as large hill with Pine and Evergreen trees. All of this is right in the heart of the city.

                                                  Botanic Gardens

Some are for the experience, such as Ostre Analeg.  The park is long and narrow, used in conjunction with the National Art museum. It is extremely family friendly with large recreational use. It is line with parks and benches, tables and grills.

                                                         Ostre Analeg

A common denominator between all these parks is the ability to provide an escape and exposure to nature to the city urban dwellers. It is a place to connect with family, enjoy your peers and escape from the hustle and bustle and pollution of the city. In fact the city found the benefits of the garden are so great it costs less for them to upkeep these gardens then it would in medical expenses if the gardens were to be removed. 

For more information on Copenhagen parks and gardens please visit: http://www.copenhagen.com/parks-and-gardens

Picture 1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1728_map_of_Copenhagen

Picture 2: http://www.sofiesblog.dk/dagens-outfit/ørstedsparken/

Picture 3: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Copenhagen_Botanical_Garden

Picture 4: http://fiskesaeson.dk/fiskeri-for-born/bornevenlige-fiskevande/ostre-anlaeg-aalborg/

Garden Art Blog #6

    From the 17^th to the 18^th century, the English style gardens went from the formal baroque garden to the flowing landscape gardens. Influenced by the British agricultural revolution as well as the anti-French movement within in England, which prompted the dismantling of the Baroque gardens, these new flowing gardens gained great popularity. There was also a significant reform in political, economic, philosophy, democracy and technology as well as a push into the new neoclassical artistic movement. All of these factors combined lead to a new sense of individualism and philosophy leading from structured gardens to free flowing gardens.

A example of a Ha-Ha

Charles Bridgeman began to design English Landscapes. He was one of the first gardeners to design in the English Landscape style and is most well known for his design of the most expansive country estate, Stowe. He invented one of the most well-known and popular English garden features, the Ha-Ha. The Ha-Ha became popular due to its allowance to protect the garden from animals without the disturbance of the landscape. Bridgeman is also accredited with being one of the first gardeners to deformalize gardens and move away from the formality and rigidity of gardens of the past. Although the transition from baroque can be seen in Stowe, through the geometrically styled path and water features, they are minute formal features in comparison to the informal expansive landscape, ponds and lakes. However, these seemingly random features were carefully placed. He would arrange feature to draw your eye to a central feature such as an amphitheater or garden buildings. Unfortunately, there are few untouched Bridgemen’s gardens; many were redesigned by William Kent.

                                          Charles Bridgeman's design of Stowe

            William Kent took Charles Bridgeman’s ideas of a free flowing English garden one step further.  He introduced the English landscape garden and his designs combined art and nature as one. He tried to shape the land so naturally that you wouldn’t even know it had been shaped. He removed most of the formalized features in the Stowe garden but added statues, buildings and ancient myths to showcase an allegorical story as you walk through the garden. For example, one path in Stowe represents the path to virtue and is peppered with features that allude to this virtue (worthiness, greatness, etc.) Although a notorious drunk and highly unreliable, Kent made great contributions to the British landscapes.

William Kent

“Capability” Brown was the head gardener for Stowe and got his nickname from informing people that their land could be improved upon, his goal was to garden all of England. He dismissed most of Kent’s allegories and focused more on the natural aspect and beauty of gardens. Browns gardens were free flowing with scatted trees, man made lakes and clumps. He was known for having grandeur visions and would alter the landscape in order to complete and fulfill his vision. His inspiration for all of his gardens was England; he toyed with topography in order to accomplish an aesthetically pleasing look. He believed that gardening was to improve upon nature and would use hard to detect techniques like framing a castle in a large field, strategically placing trees to draw your eye to the castle. These three designers used their own ideas and techniques to influence landscape gardens at Stowe and contribute to the evolution of landscape design. When visiting the garden, you must also visit the amazing library within the castle, although many of the famous manuscripts were sold when the 2nd Duke went bankrupts.

Stowe Garden

For more information on the Stowe Garden, where it is located and the visiting hours please see this website: http://www.gardenvisit.com/garden/stowe_landscape_garden

Picture Resources: https://architessica.wordpress.com/2011/03/24/the-significance-of-the-ha-ha/

www.bu.edu

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/133630313917212505/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/48028479@N00/7865890248/