Painting the Modern Garden by Monty Don (9781910350034)

Description - Painting the Modern Garden by Monty Don

While depictions of gardens are found across the centuries and around the world, within Europe the Impressionists were among the first to portray gardens directly from life, focusing on their colour and form rather than using them as a background for historical, religious and literary themes. This volume explores the close, symbiotic relationship between artists and gardens that developed during the latter part of the nineteenth and the first part of the twentieth centuries. It centres on Monet, a great horticulturalist as well as a great artist, and the creation of his garden at Giverny, where he painted his Water Lilies series. "I owe it to flowers," he wrote, "that I have become a painter." Beautifully illustrated with masterpieces from Monet and fellow Impressionists, and from later painters - such as Bonnard, Sargent, Klee, Kandinsky and Matisse - Painting the Modern Garden traces the changing influences of artistic movements and social and political effects on the garden in modern art. Chapters explore the aesthetic importance of gardens to these artists, and also their significance as utopian spaces of imagination, reverie, and spiritual refuge. Monty Don is a horticulturalist and broadcaster, who has written widely on gardens and gardening. Ann Dumas is a specialist in French nineteenth-century art and a curator at the Royal Academy of Arts. Heather Lemonedes is Curator of Drawings at the Cleveland Musuem of Art. James Priest is Head Gardener at Monet s garden at Giverny. William Robinson is Curator of Modern European Art at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Clare P. Willsdon is Professor of the History of Western Art at the University of Glasgow, and author of Impressionist Gardens. SELLING POINTS: A sumptuous exploration of work undertaken by Impressionists to depict the modern garden Brimming with rich illustrations of their work and intriguing photographs of the artists featured Accompanied by texts from authoritative experts in the fields of Impressionist history and horticulture 250 colour

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