apollo rising

The belief that paradise was up ahead, always just out of reach, had never wavered during the relentless rise of European secularism since the sixteenth century. From then until now, the tenacious grip of the symbolism of the paradise myth on human minds has remained tight, outlasting even that of God for many. Paradise has become the unacknowledged faith of our times, the driving myth of progress and consumer capitalism. We see aspects of the old perfection myth born again everywhere: in Arcadian dreams of country living, in environmentalist hopes for a return to a Golden Age of global harmony, and even in the supermarkets’ ambition to make a Perpetual Spring in the fruit and vegetable department.”

-Kevin Rushby

Paradise: A History of the Idea That Rules the World

---An orangery (citrus orchard) first began to appear as an element of landscape design in the Renaissance gardens of Italy. Orangeries became a staple of the Dutch baroque gardens (often built in glass-enclosed hot-houses or warmed with fires to protect against the harshness of Northern European winters) and were associated with the legendary gardens of the Hesperides*, where Hercules received the golden apples as reward for his virtues. It is no coincidence that a statue of Hercules can be seen in the far background of this print.--- Read More:http://bibliodyssey.blogspot.com/2010/10/pleasure-garden.html

The figure of the Renaissance gardener. With one exception, his implements are not tools for making plants grow, as one might expect in a gardener, but for stopping them growing. Shears and scythes and billhooks, hoes and rakes and saws: these are the weapons to fight and subdue all free vegetation. Only the watering is to serve for encouragement, and that is only to comfort the trees and flowers already most thoroughly tamed and imprisoned in pots.

But, by the beginning of the seventeenth-century, the energetic jockeying of the papal princes for power and position had put an end to the simple gardener, and the garden designer was in full sway. Domenico Fontana was the first of a family of garden architects who landscaped the villas of the papal princes at Rome and Frascati.

---Vincent Van Gogh French Impressionist Artist Paintings and Prints - Entrance to the Public Gardens in Arles 1888--- Read More:http://www.encore-editions.com/vincent-van-gogh-french-impressionist-artist-paintings-and-prints-entrance-to-the-public-gardens-in-arles-1888-28-x-35-approximate-size-in-inches-of-original-painting

The garden designers of France were slow to follow the Italian style. They clung to their moats and turreted walls, and they had a special fondness for the decorative beds known as the parterres de broderie, elaborate flowing dsigns picked out with low hedges, generally of box-box, “patient of the scissors.” These parterres were usually filled with colored sands, not flowers; flowers were a slight vulgarity in the Renaissance garden. This style- often executed by versatile embroiderers who worked the same designs in fabric for the French court- was very popular in France, though it did not suit the more austere taste of the great garden designer, Andre Le Notre: only fit for nursemaids, he said, to admire from the nursery windows.

---The print shows the bloemhof (flower garden) with an extensive variety of plants and flowers (not in-bloom). During the second half of the 17th century such flowerbeds were very popular. Beyond simply presenting a large variety of colours and fragrances, gardeners and their employers were obsessed with collecting exotic flower specimens from all over the world. The diversity of the Enghien park collection contributed greatly to its reputation as one of the finest gardens in Europe. The garden front of the Duke of Aremberg's palace looms beyond the hedges on the left. The blue-roofed pavilions in the middle distance are grottos which housed small fountains. The hedges along the sides have been clipped to provide niches for the statues that are well integrated into the overall design. Gardeners at work, friars and beggars add interest to the scene.--- Read More:http://bibliodyssey.blogspot.com/2010/10/pleasure-garden.html

Le Notre, the climactic figure in the long development of the formal Renaissance garden, was assigned by Louis XIV to design the palace grounds at Versailles. While he pursued his grand designs with a free hand, he was flanked by a staff of expert assistants whose task it was to execute ingenious grottoes, mazes, labyrinths, green theaters, and spacious pavilions for open air meals. The canal which adjoined the Basin of Apollo was the largest garden canal ever built and was used by the king for his mock naval battles.

---Vue à vol d’oiseau des jardins de Versailles Date XIXème siècle---