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The afterlife of gardens
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Most historical and critical discussions of gardens focus on their design. What happens after the completion of the design, however, is largely ignored, which neglects a much larger part of the site's interest and potential. For gardens, John Dixon Hunt contends, are experienced, often by a succession of visitors at different times and often from different cultures; this(...)
The afterlife of gardens
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$62.50
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Most historical and critical discussions of gardens focus on their design. What happens after the completion of the design, however, is largely ignored, which neglects a much larger part of the site's interest and potential. For gardens, John Dixon Hunt contends, are experienced, often by a succession of visitors at different times and often from different cultures; this experience, though determined by the original design and its subsequent modifications, also augments the site's potentialities, and this "afterlife" of gardens comes to enhance the original moment of creation. One way of exploring the experience of designed landscapes is to adapt literary reception theory to the study of gardens. Hunt argues that such an approach via the reception or experience of gardens enlarges how we should understand their significance and meanings. It is generally assumed that the experience of gardens became a prime ingredient of late eighteenth-century landscapes -- picturesque literature especially highlighted how visitors responded to their surroundings, reading inscriptions and recognizing the significance of carefully placed architectural items or fabriqués. But there is considerable evidence for a much earlier interest in how experience came to constitute an essential aspect of a site beyond the intentions of the original designer or patron. Among other early examples, Hunt examines the book “Hypnerotomachia Polifili” (1499) to show how its protagonist is shown exploring and negotiating a series of strange and baffling landscapes. Through other inquiries -- particularly into the role of movement in such different situations as Versailles, and Chiswick or along modern highways – “The Afterlife of Gardens” provides a fresh approach to the study of designed landscapes that goes beyond their production and into how they exist and are understood by their users. In this ambitious new book the author shows how the complete history of a garden must extend beyond the moment of its design and the aims of the designer to record its subsequent reception. He raises questions about the preservation of historical sites, and provides lessons for the contemporary designer, who may perhaps be more attentive to the life of a work after its design and implementation. This book will interest all who have a professional interest in gardens, as well as the wide general audience for gardens and landscapes of past and present.
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January 1900, Philadelphia
Landscape Theory
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John Dixon Hunt traces the rise of the picturesque garden in England, exploring intricate dialogues between practical place-making and the theoretical formulations of the picturesque that began with Alexander Pope and Joseph Addison and ended in the 1790s. It surveys a wide range of sites -- Rousham, Stourhead, Kew, Herstecombe, The Lesowes and Hafod, among others-- and(...)
The picturesque garden in Europe
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John Dixon Hunt traces the rise of the picturesque garden in England, exploring intricate dialogues between practical place-making and the theoretical formulations of the picturesque that began with Alexander Pope and Joseph Addison and ended in the 1790s. It surveys a wide range of sites -- Rousham, Stourhead, Kew, Herstecombe, The Lesowes and Hafod, among others-- and the contributions to their creation by both amateurs and professionals.
Gardens
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The gardens and estate of La Foce constitute one of the most important and best kept early twentieth-century gardens in Italy. Amid 3,500 acres of farmland in the countryside near Pienza, with sweeping views of the Tuscan landscape, La Foce was the childhood dream garden of the late writer Marchesa Iris Origo. Passionate about the order and symmetry of Florentine gardens,(...)
Gardens
December 2001, Philadelphia
La Foce : a garden and landscape in Tuscany
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The gardens and estate of La Foce constitute one of the most important and best kept early twentieth-century gardens in Italy. Amid 3,500 acres of farmland in the countryside near Pienza, with sweeping views of the Tuscan landscape, La Foce was the childhood dream garden of the late writer Marchesa Iris Origo. Passionate about the order and symmetry of Florentine gardens, Origo and her husband, Antonio, purchased the dilapidated villa in 1924, soliciting the help of English architect and family friend Cecil Pinsent to reawaken the natural magic of the property. Pinsent designed the structure of simple, elegant, box-edged beds and green enclosures that give shape to the Origos' shrubs, perennials, and vines, and created a garden of soaring cypress walks, native cyclamen, lawns, and wildflower meadows. Today the garden is a place of unusual and striking beauty, a green oasis in the barren Siena countryside. Situated in the Val d'Orcia, a wide valley in southeastern Tuscany that seems to exist on a larger, wilder scale than the rest of the Tuscan landscape, it is run by Benedetta and Donata Origo, and is open to the public one day a week. "La Foce : a garden and landscape in Tuscany" includes a historical essay and memoir by the daughter of La Foce's creators, Antonio and Iris Origo, along with photographs, sketches, and a critical analysis of the gardens. The volume not only focuses on the beauty of the gardens themselves and their indisputable merit as fascinating works of landscape architecture but also sees them within the context of both the larger Tuscan topography and the wider landscape of geography and history.
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December 2001, Philadelphia
Gardens
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"Nature Over Again" reveals the story behind the majority of Finlay's renowned garden installations, and is the first study to examine his garden designs and 'interventions' in a consequential way. An accomplished Scottish poet, writer, artist and gardener, Finlay infused his garden designs with a distinct aesthetic philosophy and poetic sensibility.John Dixon Hunt(...)
Nature over again: the garden art of Ian Hamilton Finlay
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"Nature Over Again" reveals the story behind the majority of Finlay's renowned garden installations, and is the first study to examine his garden designs and 'interventions' in a consequential way. An accomplished Scottish poet, writer, artist and gardener, Finlay infused his garden designs with a distinct aesthetic philosophy and poetic sensibility.John Dixon Hunt situates his analysis of Finlay's gardens in the context of that broader philosophy and poetic work, drawing on Finlay's books, prints and other written reflections about the art and practice of garden design. From the Max Planck Institute in Stuttgart to the Serpentine Gallery in London to the University of California at San Diego campus, the book documents how Finlay built an oeuvre of international renown, and ultimately argues that Finlay's innovations are best understood in the context of the long tradition of European gardens.
Gardens
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This book attempts to chart the history of art and its interaction with written language. It examines the use of words (or language) in many genres of art – most often painting, but including prints, the book as art, sculpture, installation, and performance. This book asks what does it mean when a painting is 'invaded' by language? How do the two forms converse and(...)
Art, word and image : 2,000 years of visual/textual interaction
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This book attempts to chart the history of art and its interaction with written language. It examines the use of words (or language) in many genres of art – most often painting, but including prints, the book as art, sculpture, installation, and performance. This book asks what does it mean when a painting is 'invaded' by language? How do the two forms converse and combine, and what messages are intended for the viewer? In addition, other important themes that are also addressed include the naming or titling of paintings, the uses of narrative in art, and the literary connections and aspirations of artists. The book is constructed around three wide-ranging essays by John Dixon Hunt, David Lomas and Michael Corris. These essays discuss the use and significance of words in art – from Classical Greece and Assyria, through to the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, to modern times and today’s digital media, where the words and image question has become a central issue. The essays cover a variety of movements (Pre-Raphaelites, Cubists, Surrealists, and Lettrists, for example) and many artists, among them Duchamp, Picasso, Ernst, Twombly, Michaux, Warhol and Kruger. The book also includes ‘spotlight’ essays on artists whose work engages substantially with questions of word and image: Blake, Klee, Schwitters, Haack, Pettibon, McCahon and Walla. With contributions by Jeremy Adler, Stephen Barber, Rex Butler and Laurence Simmons, Michael Corris, John Dixon Hunt, Michael R. Leaman, David Lomas, Joseph Viscomi, Hamza Walker, Barbara Weyandt and Michael White.
Art Theory
Of gardens: Selected essays
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Of Gardens covers individual landscape architects and designers, including André Le Nôtre, Frederick Law Olmsted, Beatrix Farrand, Russell Page, and Michael Van Valkenburgh. It also features an array of parks, public places, and gardens before turning attention to the burgeoning business of flower shows.
Of gardens: Selected essays
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Of Gardens covers individual landscape architects and designers, including André Le Nôtre, Frederick Law Olmsted, Beatrix Farrand, Russell Page, and Michael Van Valkenburgh. It also features an array of parks, public places, and gardens before turning attention to the burgeoning business of flower shows.
Gardens
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This publication how contemporary landscape architecture invokes and displays the history of a site. In the light of modernism’s neglect of history, these essays by John Dixon Hunt explore how, in fact, designers do attach importance to how a location manifests its past.
Historical ground: the role of history in contemporary landsape architecture
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This publication how contemporary landscape architecture invokes and displays the history of a site. In the light of modernism’s neglect of history, these essays by John Dixon Hunt explore how, in fact, designers do attach importance to how a location manifests its past.
Landscape Theory
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For ancient Romans, genius loci was literally "the genius of the place,"the presiding divinity who inhabited a site and gave it meaning. While we are less attuned to divinity today, we still sense that a place has significance. In this book, eminent garden historian John Dixon Hunt explores genius loci in many settings, including contemporary land art, the paintings of(...)
Genius Loci: An essay on the meanings of place
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For ancient Romans, genius loci was literally "the genius of the place,"the presiding divinity who inhabited a site and gave it meaning. While we are less attuned to divinity today, we still sense that a place has significance. In this book, eminent garden historian John Dixon Hunt explores genius loci in many settings, including contemporary land art, the paintings of Paul and John Nash, travel writers such as Henry James, Paul Theroux, and Lawrence Durrell on Provence, Mexico, and Cyprus, and landscape architects who invent new meanings for a site. This book is a nuanced, thoughtful exploration of how places become more significant to us through the myriad ways we see, talk about, and remember them.
Landscape Theory
Book of ruins
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''Book of ruins'' offers a survey – not encyclopedic, but substantial – of leading moments when the fact and idea of ruins were taken up by writers, travellers and artists: painters, film makers, landscape architects, and architects. Gathering together short texts and extracts that describe and reflect on ruins, dating from remote antiquity (Scipio shedding tears when(...)
Architectural Theory
September 2022
Book of ruins
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''Book of ruins'' offers a survey – not encyclopedic, but substantial – of leading moments when the fact and idea of ruins were taken up by writers, travellers and artists: painters, film makers, landscape architects, and architects. Gathering together short texts and extracts that describe and reflect on ruins, dating from remote antiquity (Scipio shedding tears when viewing the destruction of Carthage) to present times (the ruins of a modern city, portrayed in the film ''Requiem for Detroit''), it provides a perspective upon what the past has meant to different cultures at different times. Following an introductory essay, the book includes 70 entries, chronologically ordered, each including an indicative image (or two), an introductory commentary by the authors, and the text itself. The texts come from designers (from Bernini through Piranesi to David Chipperfield) as well as other artists (John Piper), and from literary figures (Goethe, Wordsworth, Byron and Shelley, Hugo, and Hardy). It concludes by discussing what we do with ruins by way of preservation, conservation, adaptive reuse and appropriation, and contemporary loss and ruin, as illustrated by 9/11 and the Neues Museum and highlighting the continuing relevance of the ruin.
Architectural Theory
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This book presents twelve essays by John Dixon Hunt, the leading theorist and historian of landscape architecture. The collection's common theme is a focus on sites, how we see them and what we derive from that looking. Acknowledging that even the most modest landscape encounter has validity, Hunt contends that the more one knows about a site and one's own sight of it (an(...)
Site, sight, insight: essays on landscape architecture
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This book presents twelve essays by John Dixon Hunt, the leading theorist and historian of landscape architecture. The collection's common theme is a focus on sites, how we see them and what we derive from that looking. Acknowledging that even the most modest landscape encounter has validity, Hunt contends that the more one knows about a site and one's own sight of it (an awareness of how one is seeing), the greater the insight. Employing the concepts, tropes, and rhetorical methods of literary analysis, he addresses the problem of how to discuss, understand, and appreciate places that are experienced through all the senses, over time and through space.
Landscape Theory