DOI issue:
Nr. 2
DOI article:Świtek, Gabriela: Ut pictura hortus. Przejawy kultury estetycznej w sztuce ogrodowej XVIII wieku
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.49349#0309
Ut PICTURA HORTUS. THE MANIFESTATIONS OF AESTHETIC CULTURE IN 18tH-CENTURY GARDEN DESIGN 299
Ut pictura hortus. The manifestations of aesthetic
culture in IBth-century garden design
'What is a hermitage without a hermit?' The question
of credibility and meaning of representation posed by
Tom Stoppard in his drama Arcadia (1993) provides
a good introduction to my deliberations on the
picturesque as a phenomenon of 18th-century culture.
The picturesque is not a mere exhausted aesthetic
category, or an old-fashioned postulate of art; it has to
be understood as a mode of representation
characteristic of aestheticism. Gadamer's notion of
'aesthetic differentiation' proves to be extremely
appropriate for the examination of the picturesque.
'Aesthetic differentiation' presupposes a process of
abstraction; the work of art becomes uprooted from
its original context of life, and the religious and
secular function that gave it significance.
Consequently, 'aesthetic differentiation' allows us to
see everything aesthetically.
The 18th-century theoreticians tended to
interpret the picturesque as a normative aesthetic
category; their main claim was to 'make everything
picturesque'. In his essay On Picturesque Beauty,
William Gilpin naively recommends using a mallet
in order to turn a finely finished building into
a rough-edged ruin. Only then does the building
accord with the standards of a picturesque view.
Similarly, Uvedale Price advises studying an
imitation of nature rather than nature itself in order
to create a picturesque image. In his view, the
picturesque is the effect associated with the objects
that are interesting to a cultivated eye; it can be
artificially created - unlike the sublime, whose
creation is beyond our contracted powers.
One of the most paradoxical aspects of the
picturesque is that it questions a classical definition
of architecture. In the course of the 18th century the
Vitruvian threefold schema: firmitas, utilitas,
venustas was gradually replaced by the concept in
architecture of searching for the 'picturesque view';
the phenomenon of fabriques in the late 18th-
century garden is a good illustration of this tendency.
Fabriques are a new branch of architecture
reflecting a period when a new type of garden was in
fashion; i.e. from ca. 1760 until around 1830. The
notion originates from the vocabulary of painters.
The temples, ruins, obelisks, pyramids and other
architectural features of the landscape garden, are
often thought to derive from the 17th-century
'heroic' or 'rural' types of landscapes represented in
painting. The differentiation of styles in landscape
(as suggested by Roger de Piles in The Principles of
Painting) is considered as one of the direct
influences on the theory of painting on the
development of the early landscape garden and the
new type of garden architecture. It is only in the
second half of the 18th century that the term fabrique
is used to mean all constructions erected in a garden.
Gardens were thought of, if not specially designed,
on the model of pictures; the garden at Stourhead,
Wiltshire, is a case in point. The garden is full of
literary and pictorial allusions to Virgil's Aeneid; the
garden path around the lake, the descent to the
Grotto and other scenes simulate Aeneas' journey.
The view of the Pantheon recalls the tempie
represented in Claude Lorrain's Coast View of Delos
with Aeneas, while the design of the Temple of
Apollo was taken directly from the Ruins of Balbeck
both by Robert Wood and James Dawkins.
The affinity between the new garden architecture
and painting indicates a significant shift in
understanding the nature of architectural
representation. The 18th-century re-interpretation of
ut pictura poesis, an old topos, resulted in the
representation based on the principle 'architecture
as picture', or 'garden as picture'. This principle lay
at the very essence of a new type of a picturesque
garden that did not necessarily represent nature in all
its richness and irregularities but opened a path for
artistic invention, and experiments with historical
architectural forms.
'The pleasure of a natural garden is to find
everywhere the pictures.' This statement by
Carmontelle, the 18th-century French garden and
stage designer and playwright, not only summed up
many picturesque theories of the day but was also
manifest in his design for the Jardin de Monceau,
known also as La Folie de Chartres, the most
spectacular French example of the jardin anglo-
chinois. The story of the Monceau garden began in
1769 when the Duke of Chartres, an ardent
anglophile, acquired the site near Paris. Carmontelle's
project realised in 1773-1780 incorporated the
already existing French garden. His contributions to
the enlargement of the garden can be reconstructed
from the architect's own descriptions published in his
Jardin de Monceau (1779).
Nevertheless, Carmontelle's publication was not
intended to offer a new elaborated garden theory. He
acknowledged Thomas Whately's Observations on
Modern Gardening as a sufficient theoretical
background for garden design. His publication was
not a mere description of what had been achieved in
the Monceau garden, but a kind of short guide book
Ut pictura hortus. The manifestations of aesthetic
culture in IBth-century garden design
'What is a hermitage without a hermit?' The question
of credibility and meaning of representation posed by
Tom Stoppard in his drama Arcadia (1993) provides
a good introduction to my deliberations on the
picturesque as a phenomenon of 18th-century culture.
The picturesque is not a mere exhausted aesthetic
category, or an old-fashioned postulate of art; it has to
be understood as a mode of representation
characteristic of aestheticism. Gadamer's notion of
'aesthetic differentiation' proves to be extremely
appropriate for the examination of the picturesque.
'Aesthetic differentiation' presupposes a process of
abstraction; the work of art becomes uprooted from
its original context of life, and the religious and
secular function that gave it significance.
Consequently, 'aesthetic differentiation' allows us to
see everything aesthetically.
The 18th-century theoreticians tended to
interpret the picturesque as a normative aesthetic
category; their main claim was to 'make everything
picturesque'. In his essay On Picturesque Beauty,
William Gilpin naively recommends using a mallet
in order to turn a finely finished building into
a rough-edged ruin. Only then does the building
accord with the standards of a picturesque view.
Similarly, Uvedale Price advises studying an
imitation of nature rather than nature itself in order
to create a picturesque image. In his view, the
picturesque is the effect associated with the objects
that are interesting to a cultivated eye; it can be
artificially created - unlike the sublime, whose
creation is beyond our contracted powers.
One of the most paradoxical aspects of the
picturesque is that it questions a classical definition
of architecture. In the course of the 18th century the
Vitruvian threefold schema: firmitas, utilitas,
venustas was gradually replaced by the concept in
architecture of searching for the 'picturesque view';
the phenomenon of fabriques in the late 18th-
century garden is a good illustration of this tendency.
Fabriques are a new branch of architecture
reflecting a period when a new type of garden was in
fashion; i.e. from ca. 1760 until around 1830. The
notion originates from the vocabulary of painters.
The temples, ruins, obelisks, pyramids and other
architectural features of the landscape garden, are
often thought to derive from the 17th-century
'heroic' or 'rural' types of landscapes represented in
painting. The differentiation of styles in landscape
(as suggested by Roger de Piles in The Principles of
Painting) is considered as one of the direct
influences on the theory of painting on the
development of the early landscape garden and the
new type of garden architecture. It is only in the
second half of the 18th century that the term fabrique
is used to mean all constructions erected in a garden.
Gardens were thought of, if not specially designed,
on the model of pictures; the garden at Stourhead,
Wiltshire, is a case in point. The garden is full of
literary and pictorial allusions to Virgil's Aeneid; the
garden path around the lake, the descent to the
Grotto and other scenes simulate Aeneas' journey.
The view of the Pantheon recalls the tempie
represented in Claude Lorrain's Coast View of Delos
with Aeneas, while the design of the Temple of
Apollo was taken directly from the Ruins of Balbeck
both by Robert Wood and James Dawkins.
The affinity between the new garden architecture
and painting indicates a significant shift in
understanding the nature of architectural
representation. The 18th-century re-interpretation of
ut pictura poesis, an old topos, resulted in the
representation based on the principle 'architecture
as picture', or 'garden as picture'. This principle lay
at the very essence of a new type of a picturesque
garden that did not necessarily represent nature in all
its richness and irregularities but opened a path for
artistic invention, and experiments with historical
architectural forms.
'The pleasure of a natural garden is to find
everywhere the pictures.' This statement by
Carmontelle, the 18th-century French garden and
stage designer and playwright, not only summed up
many picturesque theories of the day but was also
manifest in his design for the Jardin de Monceau,
known also as La Folie de Chartres, the most
spectacular French example of the jardin anglo-
chinois. The story of the Monceau garden began in
1769 when the Duke of Chartres, an ardent
anglophile, acquired the site near Paris. Carmontelle's
project realised in 1773-1780 incorporated the
already existing French garden. His contributions to
the enlargement of the garden can be reconstructed
from the architect's own descriptions published in his
Jardin de Monceau (1779).
Nevertheless, Carmontelle's publication was not
intended to offer a new elaborated garden theory. He
acknowledged Thomas Whately's Observations on
Modern Gardening as a sufficient theoretical
background for garden design. His publication was
not a mere description of what had been achieved in
the Monceau garden, but a kind of short guide book