Art and the gardener

My husband and I are both artists and consider our garden our clay, our block of marble, our canvas — our medium. Creating a garden involves all the same skills and concepts as making art: color, scale, pattern, and texture. We think about making the garden the same way we think about making any art and use art terminology — foreground, middle ground and background, for example — in our garden discussions. 

Throughout our time gardening we've taken classes, gone on tours and read garden books. While we know gardening is an art and that many artists — from Monet to Robert Dash — have created gardens, somehow we never made the most obvious connection. We never consciously looked at art itself — at Monet's paintings, for example — as a specific guide to creating a garden. Not to create a copy of the painting outdoors, but at the underlying principles and lessons displayed in the work. 

We did it subconsciously, however, because art training infuses everything you do. But I wonder how many gardeners might be missing out on such a useful and inspiring concept as using "Fine Painting as Inspiration for Garden Design"? That's the subtitle of Gordon Hayward's latest book in which he spells out this theme in a volume that is as beautiful as it is useful.

GORDON HAYWARD: "ART AND THE GARDENER" / Used with permission

In his book, "Art and the Gardener," Gordon Hayward shows how learning to look closely at paintings can inform garden design. In "Road Near "L'Estaque," Braque uses plates of color organized by strong diagonals on the ground (above) contrasted with freer foliage forms. James Rose (below) brings the same concepts into play in a garden he designed.

GORDON HAYWARD: "ART AND THE GARDENER" / Used with permission

"Art and the Gardener: Fine Painting as Inspiration for Garden Design" is Hayward's tenth book and one of the best garden books I've ever come across. I say that because the book takes such a different approach to the subject and because Hayward is a great teacher — in print and in person. He's been my house guest on several occasions when he's been to Madison to conduct garden design workshops and lectures, so I've had the chance to see him in action as well as sitting by the fire chatting. Hayward's own garden is in Vermont but he lectures and designs gardens around this country and in Europe. (He'll be at the CBG in November, 2009).

Hayward has been looking at the crosscurrents between painting and gardens since he gave a lecture on the subject at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston in 1994. The book really is a distillation of Hayward's years of taking the time to truly train his eye to see the common elements between the two fields. It's filled with images and ideas that will stimulate and inspire you. But Hayward wisely focuses on only one of the many elements of visual language in the text that accompanies each pair of images: a painting and it's companion garden photograph. 

This is the kind of book that you can use as a serious course of study or just dip into to find the lesson that solves a particular problem in your garden. But it is such a luscious publication — filled with clear, crisp images printed on high quality paper — that I think most gardeners will find it as irresistible as I have. Don't wait until Christmas to give yourself this garden gift!

"ART AND THE GARENER: FINE PAINTING AS AN INSPIRATION FOR GARDEN DESIGN"

By Gordon Hayward

Gibbs Smith Publishing

$40 / 176 pages 

GORDON HAYWARD: "ART AND THE GARDENER" / Used with permission

Artists like Gustav Klimt teach us to see the branching and foliage of trees in new ways (above) in paintings like "The Park" where the view is compressed into the open space between tree trunks. The waterfront garden Patrick Chasse designed in Maine (below) shows how different visual effects can be achieved through pruning.

GORDON HAYWARD: "ART AND THE GARDENER" / Used with permission

Comments

[Mr. McGregor's Daughter]

I checked that book out of the library a couple of weeks ago. It was wonderful. I've heard of this concept before, where someone suggested using colors of a favorite painting as the palette for a garden, but this book expanded on the concept. I hated to return the book to the library!

[EACH LITTLE WORLD]

It really is a wonderful book, isn't it? And same with me, I've seen the idea of using the colors from a painting, but this is a whole new concept.

[Town Mouse]

That sounds like a great book! How inspiring.