Comments on: Garden history as a word-and-image subject

By: Thomas Mickey

Thomas Mickey — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 22:34:56 +0000

yes, images of design create another layer of meaning, impossible to do without. my challenge is to free myself up from persistent ideas to express the image, to create something new.

By: Tom Turner

Tom Turner — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 08:12:54 +0000

It is a pity that so many of America’s nineteenth century gardens were lost – perhaps because aristocratic societies find it easier than democratic societies to preserve estates.
Re Word & Image in relation to gardens, do you agree that it is important for designers to trade in (deal with) words as well as images?

By: Thomas Mickey

Thomas Mickey — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 16:58:42 +0000

The article is dated 1880, not 1800.

By: Thomas Mickey

Thomas Mickey — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 16:57:54 +0000

I have been reading Philadelphia nurseryman Thomas Meehan’s 1800 magazine Gardener’s Monthly, all twelve issues. In one article Meehan writes about his visit to a country estate in New Jersey called Hollywood Park, owned by John Hoey, the President of New York’s Adams Express. The property features 2.3 million plants, 33 green houses, and a staff of 6 gardeners. The details of Meehan’s viist shocked me, the flowerbeds, the vases, the evergreens, the driveway, the fencing, the lawn. I am now drawing the property, or at least part of it, to get a visual sense of Hollywood Park. Thought of this when I read your post. A visual sense of garden history helps enormously.

By: Tom Turner

Tom Turner — Sat, 18 Dec 2010 14:03:22 +0000

There is a particular need for Chinese gardens to be treated in a word-and-image manner. First, because Chinese garden design combined words with images to a greater extent than European gardens. Second, because use of a brush instead of a pen resulted in China being more of a word-and-image culture, at least until the pen was introduced (when?). Third, because almost all the physical evidence of China’s ancient gardens has disappeared. Could you find an early (eg pre-1500) image of a Chinese garden containing text which tells us something about it?

By: Tian Yuan

Tian Yuan — Sat, 18 Dec 2010 13:02:35 +0000

I agree with you that ” A picture is worth a thousand words”. My personal view is that if Garden History could be a image and word subject then more people become interested, particularly people who do not have a landscape and garden study background. Therefore, it could play a role as a culture and would be more easily transmited.