From Library Journal
With the tools of archaeologist, art historian, sociologist, and botanist, Martin re-creates town and plantation in 18th-century Virginia. Illustrations of gardens along with biographies of their designers and patrons focus on the relationship of culture and horticulture. Soil and terrain in Virginia, although in appearance much like that of England, presented new problems of botanical needs and societal uses. Dependence between town and plantation for sustenance, material and aesthetic, is examined in terms of the planning, experimentation, and execution of the vision of figures such as Washington, Curtis, and Jefferson. The pleasure gardens were (and some still are) a reflection of the essential life of the place and time. In the same century, in the very different setting of papal Rome, the influence of English-style gardens was also being felt. Coffin's work describes the development of Roman landscape gardening as an art in itself. The formal, carefully structured aspects of earlier gardens gave way to a new, freer, more natural approach much like the newly accepted styles of neoclassic and romantic architecture. Discussion of the earlier forms of gardens, statuary, waterworks, etc., are seen in a continuum, changes more evolutionary than revolutionary. This scholarly work, replete with footnotes, is as much a historical look at the society of those who planned and enjoyed these gardens as at the gardens themselves. These two works on the changing forms of gardens are an indication of the current interest in the sociological and political importance of garden history. Each is a welcome addition to the literature and provides a source for further study and insight. Both are for informed laypersons and specialists.
- Paula Frosch, Metro politan Museum of Art Lib., New York
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
- Paula Frosch, Metro politan Museum of Art Lib., New York
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
