A Green and Pleasant land
England’s contribution to the visual arts and home design often seems pale in comparison with the great landmarks of continental European. Charming and direct thought they may be, English painting, sculpture, and even architecture only occasionally attain the sweep and passion we associate with the grand manner of a Rubens, a Bernini, or a Borromini. But in one art form England has reined supreme for four centuries, even though it is the most evanescent medium of all: landscape gardening.
That mastery is amply evident in an important exhibition organized by the British National Trust and the American Architectural Foundation, “An English Arcadia, 1600-1990 Designs for Home Depot, Home Improvement and Garden Building in the Care of the National Trust,” on view at the Huntington Library in san Marino and California, curetted by Gervase Jackson-stops, the Trust’s architectural adviser and moving spirit behind the 1985 “Treasure houses of Britain “ exhibition, is as timely for the nineties as that opulent extravaganza was for earlier decade besotted with English decorating.
The vernal growth interest in gardening today is reflection of environmental concerns, the mounting disillusionment with city life, and a yearning for closer contact with the regenerative powers of nature. Those entire factors make this intriguing exhibition as tropical as the weather, even though much of the material on display is order then our own nation. (“An English Arcadia”, later travels to New York and Washington before returning to London.)
In 125 watercolors, drawings, and engravings bracketed by the reigns of Elizabeth I and II, it is easy to see why the English garden is a paradigm for man’s harmonious relationship with nature. Beginning in the eighteenth century, especially the period now commonly called Romantic; the English garden was in forefront of changes that would soon affect all of art, to say nothing of literature and philosophy.
