Gardens As Art

Much to my shame I cannot draw. Give me a pencil and a ruler and there’s a moderate to fair chance I can give you a straight line, but beyond that I am hopeless. I like the idea of paints and pastels but there’s absolutely no way that I could produce something worthy of being called art, even by the sometimes rather eyebrow-raising modern concepts of what constitutes creative beauty.

And let’s not try me with sculptor’s clay or, even worse, a lump of stone and a hammer and chisel; I can see potential in my mind but something goes very wrong and I end up with a hideous mess. By all conventional definitions I have the artistic skill of a lump of wood.

But there is one form of art that I can claim at least some skill with.

The Garden As Art

Are our gardens not an expression of art? We combine shapes and textures with lines of sight and balanced proportions. There’s light and shadow, a foreground and a background.

Maybe the idea that your garden and mine is a work of art seems a little pretentious. I’m sure we’re all happy with the idea that at least some of the ‘great gardens’ might be regarded as art, but for most our modesty and sense of decency stops us from making great declarations of our own greatness. It seems a little uncouth to boast.

I garden for me, but I like it

I might venture to suggest another thing that gets in the way of recognising just how good our gardens actually are: familiarity. Our gardens are our work and we know them intimately. Where others see beauty we see work, things that we must do to pursue our own vision of how the garden should look.

There’s an uncanny parallel with Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece the Mona Lisa. Da Vinci began the painting in late 1503 or some time in 1504 but there is a strong body of academics who believe that the painting may have in fact have been an ongoing project for many years. Given that the painting was left unfinished it’s entirely plausible that da Vinci made alterations up until around 1517 when a problem with his hand left him unable to paint.

This ongoing process is familiar to us all, as is that realisation at the back of our minds that our gardens will never truly be finished. The Mona Lisa is regarded as a masterpiece despite there being every indication that the artist was not happy with it.

A Four Dimensional Picture

For me gardens exist somewhere between a picture and a sculpture. Plants are features are arranged to make scenes but at the same time you can walk through them because they exist in three dimensions instead of two.

It’s like a picture but you can walk through it

In fact gardens exist in four dimensions, the three conventional dimensions plus time. A garden is a form of art that is always changing, sometimes massively and sometimes incrementally. There are conventionally recognised works of art that will change in time, such as the wooden forms created by David Nash. No matter how well these are protected they will one day return to the earth.

But there’s a world of difference between the decay of sculpted wood and the ebb and flow of a garden. From the moment a tree is cut the fate of the wood is sealed, even when decay is slowed to many centuries. By contrast a garden can grow into life and wane into dormancy many times, and from the moment the first plant goes into the ground it begins its journey of change, growth and decay.

With the colour removed from this image you can really appreciate the shapes and textures of this scene

The elements of the garden, including plants, are more than just a gathering of objects; arranged with consideration they take on the role more like paints, to be dabbed, smeared and brushed on the canvas as the artist-gardener sees fit.

It’s all rather poetic really.

Not All Art Has To Be A Masterpiece

If we can accept the idea that a garden is indeed a form of art then we must also accept that there is great work.

The art world has its heroes, artists living or dead whose work is regarded as particularly of note. The absolute majority of artists never receive the widespread recognition or praise that the few enjoy. Indeed Vincent van Gogh is regarded today as a great artist but was considered a failure during his lifetime.

Whether or not art has value depends really on what you consider value. If you’re looking at art as an investment then you will be looking for art that will either appreciate in or hold value, preferably both.

Should a garden contain art or can the garden be art?

However for most of us art is about something else. It’s about having something that brings us joy. A picture bought from a shop might not be worth any more than its price label but if we like it and can justify it then we will take it home. It might never see a prestigious gallery but it will hang on our wall and make us happy.

While some gardens are probably fairly considered fine art the rest, the majority, are pop-art. This is not a bad thing to be, because while fine art is studied and fussed over pop-art exists to bring joy. It can have meaning and it can very definitely have value, but a pop-art garden exists to make people happy and that’s undeniably a good thing.

I think where the idea of gardens of all kinds being expressions of art wins is that this art form is accessible. You need some space, from a windowbox to extensive acreage, but as long as your medium – plants – is suitable for your canvas you can enjoy being creative. There will be critics but there are always critics, and if you choose to keep your art private and away from prying eyes then you’re free to.

Surely gardens should be recognised as an art form?