Garden as Home Space

Question 1

Overview

Answer 1

Garden used as a symbol of cultivating nature for leisure, refuge from industry, time for the spiritual, bodily sustenance etc.
‘Great horticultural movement’

Question 2

Examples

Answer 2

• Garden of Eden/Paradise, Arcadia - place of perfection, associated with divine beings/quest for a state of bliss
• Garden of Love/Garden of Venus
• Locus amoenus, in classical antiquity, a garden as a place of harmony between man, gods and nature
• Villa d’Este, Tivoli: garden laid out to symbolise a moral choice, Hercules’ decision between virtue and vice, 51 fountains powered by gravity, with two choices of paths, one windy one involving labyrinths and the other leading to the top of the hill

Question 3

Palace of Versailles

Answer 3

Garden as an expression of human power over nature, Louis XIV’s absolute ruling. Emulating the divine power, power of God to control nature, birdsong and water from fountains creating a heavenly/divine atmosphere.
Plays with perspective so that the garden looks longer/more grand
4 Fountains for each seasons, Latona’s fountain inspired by Metamorphoses, Latona protecting her children, groves and areas such as the orangery to depict different atmopheres, everything you could possibly want in one garden - display of power and national identity

Question 4

Chinese Pavillion at Sanssouci

Answer 4

Rococco, Chinese style of architecture, popular in the 18th century, a form of escapism/elements of fantasy/dream-world

Question 5

Trianon Palaces

Answer 5

Place for Marie Antoinette to play at being a peasant, rural life, idealised small humble living, more rustic and less polished than her day-to-day, allows liberty

Question 6

Vauxhall & Cremorne Gardens

Answer 6

Popular for nobles, become scandalous at night, Whistler inspired by the fireworks, (Nocturne in Black and Gold) which Ruskin criticised but this was bound up on his disapproval of Cremorne gardens as a whole, and he takes it out on Whistler’s painting, looks looks like he flinged a pot of paint onto the canvas, Whistler sued him, not afraid to tackle the more undercurrent, seedier aspects of London

Question 7

As Home-Space

Answer 7

Monet, ‘Terrace at Sainte-Adresse’ 1867, saw the garden as a space for family bonding, as well as a display of wealth, intellect and prestige.
New plants being brought from over seas and breeding to create new plants and flowers all together. Garden including Hollyhocks and Gladioli, which were first introduced in the 1840’s.
Horizontal blocks echo a flag
Stage like, something being controlled, an attempt at making nature by artificial means

Question 8

Monet

Answer 8

flowers feature heavily in his works, usually of people in gardens. The symbolism of flowers featuring, his wife holding a white rose bud, symbolising ‘i love you’
The inspiration/interest in nature very important in the lead up to impressionism as the colours/architecture of the natural was what inspired the hazy, naturalised way of painting.
Inspired by Japanese art of similar subjects, women in the garden, the environment mirroring the fraility of the women.

Painting of son, right in the middle as though a stage, son playing with structural toys, sending subliminal messages about revolutionary ideals? The garden, children and education important in the revolution. The boy playing and learning about how to rebuild the country after defeat.

Question 9

Pissarro

Answer 9

‘Kitchen Garden at l’Hermitage, Pointoise’, showing the domestic garden, seemingly mundane
scenes, but the ordinary echoing the flow of every day life, the cycle of the seasons, a small figure amongst the agriculture, allowing humans to blend in and become part of the garden, treating it as home. Colours harmonising, suggesting a feeling of productivity but also harmonisation and organic.