Gardens in Time [Hardcover]

Jacques Bosser (Author), Alain Le Toquin (Photographer)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 2006

Ambitious in scope and a wonder to examine, Gardens in Time captures two millennia of garden history between its covers. The follow-up to world-renowned photographer Alain Le Toquin’s successful The Most Beautiful Gardens in the World, Gardens in Time contains lush and glorious photographs of the nearly 130 gardens that Le Toquin explored across 20 countries—the most comprehensive garden photo documentary ever undertaken by a single photographer. From the Roman gardens at Hadrian’s villa to the modern work of landscape gardeners like Fernando Caruncho, the Wirtzes, and Robert Irwin, historical and contemporary gardens are showcased. All are complemented by Jacques Bosser’s informative text, which reveals the evolutions, transformations, influences, and trends that characterize these beautiful landscapes, putting into context their aesthetic appeal, both then and now.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Great gardens are temporal in every way, requiring endless attention and care to survive. Although many ancient masterworks have not endured, 2000 years of garden history are preserved in this dazzling opus. Having sought out and selected an array of exemplary landscapes, innovative modernist spaces, and unstudied community plots, Bosser and world-renowned photographer Le Toquin offer an extraordinary overview. Casting a well-trained eye on structural elements and ornamental features, pristine settings and exalted plantings, Le Toquin creates images of stimulating clarity that deliver a beguiling accounting of diverse garden styles. Combined with Bosser's gracefully descriptive text, the result is a definitive and ravishing chronicle of gardens spanning past and present, East and West, the eccentric and the sublime. An index of notable gardens open to the public will pave the way to in-person experiences. Alice Joyce
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About the Author

Jacques Bosser is a writer and translator of more than 40 design and photography books. He lives in France.

Alain Le Toquin has been a photographer specializing in both culture and nature for more than 20 years. He lives in France.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Harry N. Abrams; English-language Ed edition (November 1, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0810930927
• ISBN-13: 978-0810930926
• Product Dimensions: 12.3 x 11.5 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #279,695 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Behold the Evolution of the Garden, May 31, 2007

By 

Donald Mitchell "Jesus Loves You!" (Thanks for Providing My Reviews over 109,000 Helpful Votes Globally) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Gardens in Time (Hardcover)

If you are a garden lover, you should definitely buy and treasure this book!

If you are like me, you think about the legendary rulers of the past and imagine that they must have had gardens that far surpass what we know today. But if you stop for a minute, you'll realize that those rulers didn't have modern machinery to take care of their gardens. Also tastes may have been different then.

So what did gardens look like in earlier eras?

Gardens in Time will provide some of the best answers you can hope to find.

Your tour begins with Persia, moves on to Islamic gardens, and then travels to China, Japan, and India. From there, you visit the Roman Empire, the Middle Ages in Europe, the Renaissance, the Baroque, the Rococo, and ultimately England. The tour concludes with a brief look at contemporary gardens.

To me, one of the big surprises is how many different elements the older gardens captured: stunning views, water, reflections, fountains, water lilies, fish, rocks, paths, geometric order, trees, hedges, mosaics, sculpture, architecture, enclosures, mixtures of shade and sun, and oh, yes, an occasional flower. I was also impressed by the intimacy of some gardens . . . obviously providing respite and calm. There was also remarkable restraint in some cases, showing that taste has long been important to garden designers and owners.

Naturally, one of the book's limitations is that many famous gardens (such as the hanging gardens of Babylon) no longer exist. I was impressed by how many gardens have survived for many centuries and are well preserved in the book.

A nice surprise for me was to find out that the Huntington Botanical Gardens that I admired as a youngster are among the best representations of many older garden types.

But I was surprised to see that I liked the gardens of artists best in the book, especially the famous Giverny over which Claude Monet labored for so many years. So perhaps there's more potential for art in gardens than the ancients realized.

The photography and the essays are superb. A lot of care went into picking lighting and foliage conditions that show off the gardens to best advantage.

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A dream tour that will provide inspiration for both amateur home gardeners and professional landscapers alike!, January 5, 2007

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Gardens in Time (Hardcover)

Alain Le Toquin is one of the foremost nature photographers of France. Jacques Bosser is a writer and translator of more than forty books on architecture, design, and photography. Together, Toquin and Bosser have collaborated in their highly recommended coffee table book, "Gardens In Time", to provide a showcase compendium of almost 130 gardens drawn from twenty different countries in a photo documentary that is nothing short of extraordinary. Ranging from the Roman gardens at Hadrian's villa, to the late 16th century gardens of Castello Ruspoli in Italy, to the 17th century topiary gardens of Levens Hall in Kendal, Great Britain, to the 19th century gardens of Claude Monet at Giverny, to the work of such contemporary landscape gardeners as Fernando Caruncho, the Wirtzes, and Robert Irwin, "Gardens In Time" takes the reader on a brilliant and visually impressive tour. Whether it's a rooftop garden in Paris, or a Japanese garden in Kyoto, or the Tacaruna garden in Petropolis, Brazil, "Gardens In Time" is a dream tour that will provide inspiration for both amateur home gardeners and professional landscapers alike!

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A devoted eye for botanical beauty, August 27, 2007

By 

Kathleen Guidoux "Alibrisluver" (Palo Alto, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Gardens in Time (Hardcover)

This book is irresistable to anyone who has an interest in gardens. Whether old or new, the way other gardners(both professional and amature)
see the opportunities available to use their creativity with trees and plants in any of these locations over time makes for fascinating viewing.
We are still talking about thought provoking photos from many of the pages
and will continue to enjoy the book.