The English Landscape Garden: Dreaming of Arcadia

The English Landscape Garden has reignited my imagination, interest, and passion for the gardens of the 18th century, offering a transcendent vision of Arcadia with smooth lawns, glassy pools, cool garden temples, mysterious woodland glades, and evocative statuary. This sumptuous, beautifully photographed volume celebrates 20 of the finest surviving gardens, including Studley Royal, Stowe, Chiswick House, Petworth, and Hawkstone Park.

Format: Hardback
Length: 320 pages
Publication date: 31 October 2024
Publisher: Quarto Publishing PLC

The English Landscape Garden has ignited my imagination, interest, and passion for the gardens of the 18th century, and I am confident that it will do the same for you. Gardens Illustrated "It is a rare treat to explore a production of publishing luxury like this." George Plumptre, Country Life "A wide-ranging, intensely readable, and lusciously illustrated introduction to the subject." Charles Saumarez Smith, Literary Review "Smooth lawns, glassy pools, cool garden temples, mysterious woodland glades, evocative statuary...the 18th-century English landscape garden offers a transcendent vision of Arcadia, a world of rich escapism peopled by gods and goddesses, young lovers, and dairymaids, poets, and philosophers." This sumptuous, beautifully photographed volume celebrates this quintessentially British creation, arguably its greatest art form, taking you on a tour of 20 of the finest surviving gardens, including: Studley Royal (Yorkshire), a dreamy valley garden that culminates with a view down and across the ruins of a Cistercian abbey Stowe (Buckinghamshire), the great politically motivated garden of its day, boasting the ensemble masterpiece that is William Kent's Elysian Fields Chiswick House (London), Lord Burlingtons experiment in neoclassical architecture Petworth (Sussex) – of 'Capability Brown, who eschewed the symbolism of earlier generations but created instead his own powerful vision of pastoral Arcadia Hawkstone Park (Shropshire), designed to elicit a thrill of fear in visitors as they traverse rocky precipices and encounter live hermits Including much new research and specially commissioned photographs, this is a book to dive into and be transported to an idyllic dream realm.

Weight: 2116g
Dimension: 258 x 321 x 35 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780711290921