England has long been known as a land of gardeners. Today this is more true than ever, with gardening cited as our most popular leisure activity. From Capability Brown to the cottage garden, from rural retreat to urban allotment or suburban refuge, viewing, digging, designing and appreciating gardens is central to our national psyche. The 200th anniversary of the RHS in 2004 is a timely reminder that our obsession with all things horticultural is no recent phenomenon.
British gardens have long been a source of inspiration for artists, from the historic to the most contemporary. Works featured in this book span three centuries and range in media from traditional watercolours and oils, to digitally enhanced photography and installation. Turner, Constable, Bacon, Freud, Hume, Quinn: a trajectory of artists is traced, all of whom have returned to this most English of subjects and explored it in their individual way.
The wide-ranging list of authors contributing to the book include art historians, garden historians, social commentators, critics and curators. Between them they examine subjects as varied as the cross-fertilisation between painting and design in the work of key garden designers; the rise of the suburbs; and with them the suburban garden as a place of rest and retreat; radical new takes on the garden in the work of contemporary artists; and the place of the garden in literature, illustration and the life of the nation.
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