DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16632#0475
44-6
History of Garden Art
took the lead, cultivating special botanic gardens for rearing foreign medicinal herbs;
and John Gerard, the author of several botanical books, had a famous scientific garden m
Holborn at the end of the sixteenth century. The Tradescants were a family of educated
gardeners, who in Elizabeth's reign had come over from Holland, and had won great
esteem for the acclimatisation of foreign plants in England. Both father and son were
commissioned by Lord Salisbury, Lord Burleigh's son, to travel for him m countries
over the sea; but Tradescant's own wish to explore led him farther and farther, and his
garden became a great sight: it was visited by king and queen, and was in existence till
1749. On the Tradescant tombstone we read that they
Lived till they had travell'd Art and Nature through;
As by their choice collections may appear
Of what is rare in land, in sea, in air.
This collection formed the basis of the Ashmolean Museum, founded at the same time as
the Jardin des Plantes in Paris, but m England the public Botanic Gardens started
much later.
With the seventeenth century the interest in gardens begins to make an appearance
in belles lettres, quite independently of real practical work on the one hand and theoretical
professional advice on the other. It is well worth noting, that the most important and the
most far-seeing spirit of his age, Francis Bacon, was the first to direct attention to the
matter in this way, though he was neither architect nor gardener. On the path now
smoothed by literary dilettanti the development of horticulture in England began to
make progress, which a hundred years later led to the real revolution in style.
Bacon's essay " Of Gardens" was written in his lively conversational style, full of
his own personal ideas and fancies. His notion was to put forward a scheme in better taste
for the gardens he saw about him; he was always practical, and bore in mind what it was
possible to do; moreover his aim was avowedly educational. The demand of Homer, which
he puts at the head of the essay, that the garden should always show something in flower,
is at once followed by a list of plants, soberly and methodically allotted to each
particular month.
The place he plans is expressly intended for a princely owner, and the thirty acres he
demands for the whole is for those days a remarkably large area. We must here recall that
Kenilworth had only one acre, and the large garden at Theobalds seven acres. But Bacon
has only reserved twelve for his flower-garden proper, as he breaks up the whole estate
into three parts: the house, as he insists in the essay, "Of Building," must have
a way to the garden by open galleries—"The Row of Return, on the Banquet Side, let
it be all Stately Galleries"—but this demand was not carried out at Bacon's own place,
and the open veranda has never played a great part m English country houses, for an
Englishman likes to go straight out of a room into the open air and sit there.
Next to the house there is to be a lawn, with an avenue of trees m the middle, and
covered shady walks on either side. "Nothing is more pleasant to the Eye, than green
Grass kept finely shorn." Bacon prefers this to a parterre proper, for the knotted beds
cut separately "with divers Coloured Earths," seem to him childish: "they be but Toys;
you may see as good Sights many Times in Tarts."
The main garden is in the middle of the estate. It is exactly square, "encompassed
•on all the four sides with a Stately Arched Hedge . . . over the Arches let there be an
History of Garden Art
took the lead, cultivating special botanic gardens for rearing foreign medicinal herbs;
and John Gerard, the author of several botanical books, had a famous scientific garden m
Holborn at the end of the sixteenth century. The Tradescants were a family of educated
gardeners, who in Elizabeth's reign had come over from Holland, and had won great
esteem for the acclimatisation of foreign plants in England. Both father and son were
commissioned by Lord Salisbury, Lord Burleigh's son, to travel for him m countries
over the sea; but Tradescant's own wish to explore led him farther and farther, and his
garden became a great sight: it was visited by king and queen, and was in existence till
1749. On the Tradescant tombstone we read that they
Lived till they had travell'd Art and Nature through;
As by their choice collections may appear
Of what is rare in land, in sea, in air.
This collection formed the basis of the Ashmolean Museum, founded at the same time as
the Jardin des Plantes in Paris, but m England the public Botanic Gardens started
much later.
With the seventeenth century the interest in gardens begins to make an appearance
in belles lettres, quite independently of real practical work on the one hand and theoretical
professional advice on the other. It is well worth noting, that the most important and the
most far-seeing spirit of his age, Francis Bacon, was the first to direct attention to the
matter in this way, though he was neither architect nor gardener. On the path now
smoothed by literary dilettanti the development of horticulture in England began to
make progress, which a hundred years later led to the real revolution in style.
Bacon's essay " Of Gardens" was written in his lively conversational style, full of
his own personal ideas and fancies. His notion was to put forward a scheme in better taste
for the gardens he saw about him; he was always practical, and bore in mind what it was
possible to do; moreover his aim was avowedly educational. The demand of Homer, which
he puts at the head of the essay, that the garden should always show something in flower,
is at once followed by a list of plants, soberly and methodically allotted to each
particular month.
The place he plans is expressly intended for a princely owner, and the thirty acres he
demands for the whole is for those days a remarkably large area. We must here recall that
Kenilworth had only one acre, and the large garden at Theobalds seven acres. But Bacon
has only reserved twelve for his flower-garden proper, as he breaks up the whole estate
into three parts: the house, as he insists in the essay, "Of Building," must have
a way to the garden by open galleries—"The Row of Return, on the Banquet Side, let
it be all Stately Galleries"—but this demand was not carried out at Bacon's own place,
and the open veranda has never played a great part m English country houses, for an
Englishman likes to go straight out of a room into the open air and sit there.
Next to the house there is to be a lawn, with an avenue of trees m the middle, and
covered shady walks on either side. "Nothing is more pleasant to the Eye, than green
Grass kept finely shorn." Bacon prefers this to a parterre proper, for the knotted beds
cut separately "with divers Coloured Earths," seem to him childish: "they be but Toys;
you may see as good Sights many Times in Tarts."
The main garden is in the middle of the estate. It is exactly square, "encompassed
•on all the four sides with a Stately Arched Hedge . . . over the Arches let there be an