Gardens, Landscape, and Vision in the Palaces of Islamic Spain (Paperback)

by D. Fairchild Ruggles (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review
"Ruggles's always clear narrative interweaves all the fundamental threads of the historical and political events necessary to fully appreciate the cultural bases of everything that had to do with that dramatic transformation of the Iberian landscape. She seems as at home talking about the changing yields of crop harvests as about the variations in the concepts of paradise as a garden across different cultures." - Maria Rosa Menocal, Yale University, The Medieval Review

Product Description
Islamic gardens, with their waterways and beds of plants and trees, are generally regarded as an earthly reflection of paradise. D. Fairchild Ruggles offers a different interpretation, contending that the palace garden was primarily an environmental, economic and political construct. She discusses three aspects of medieval Islamic Spain: the landscape and agricultural transformation documented in Arabic scientific literature, the formation of the garden and its symbolism from the eighth through to the 15th centuries, and the role of the gaze and the frame in the spatial structures through with sovereignty was constituted. Although the repertory of architectural and garden forms was largely unchanged from the 10th to the 15th centuries, Ruggles explains that their meaning changed dramatically. The royal palace gardens of Cordoba expressed a political ideology that placed the king above and at the centre of the garden, and metaphorically, of his kingdom. This conception of the world began to falter in later centuries, but patrons clung to the forms and motifs of the golden age. Instead of creating new forms, artists at the Alhambra in Granada reworked and refined familiar vocabulary and materials. The vistas fixed by windows and pavilions referred not to the actual relationship of the king to his domain, but rather to the memory of a once-expanding territory.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 264 pages
• Publisher: Pennsylvania State University Press (February 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0271022477
• ISBN-13: 978-0271022475
• Product Dimensions: 10.9 x 8.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #815,564 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars serious scholarship accessible to the layperson, September 17, 2004

By	Mary Ann Daland (Somerville, MA) - See all my reviews

I own the hardcover version of this book. This is a fascinating topic. The writing in this book is beautiful: rich, concise, informed.

This book is serious scholarship, but much of it is accessible to the interested layperson. I highly recommend this book.

1 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars paradise lost, April 19, 2005

By	tezcatlipoca "nahuat'l war god" (quintana roo) - See all my reviews

I haven't read this,but the author's contention,contained in the editorial review,that the concept of paradise is a latter thought,is diammetrically opposed to the generally accepted idea that the islamic garden is a a descendant from the perisan chah-bagh,the four way divided,enclosed pleasure garden.
Ancient Persia was to the arabic world what greece might have meant to the romans,a paradigm to be emulated.
The word paradise,per se,comes from the persian paradeisos,meaning the royal enclosed hunting grounds.