Garden Gnomes

Garden History and Landscape Studies at the Bard Graduate Center Volume ı | Number ıı | Spring/Summer 2004 Letter from the Editors Gnomenculture platitudes a bout his true nature, that, as the victim of this erro- neous information, he has hidden himself out of shame. Although produced nowadays in bright plastic and not terra-cotta (as was the case a century and more ago), the tradi- iewpoints, the pub- book edited by Betsy G. he gnome is perhaps the most despised garden orna- tional garden gnome has great charm. Being a good-humored lication of the Fryberger, who organized the ment in landscape history. With his pickax, lantern, fellow, full of laughter, kind to adults, a friend to children, and a Bard Graduate exhibition it accompanied. wheelbarrow, and little deer for companions, he has companion of nature, he embodies the instructive behavior of Center’s program Ethan Carr, assistant profes- long been an object of scorn, an emblem of bad a character in a fairy tale. It is therefore strange that his reputa- of Garden History sor in landscape architecture taste, and an affront to the designers of beautiful tion remains so poor. The gnome’s genealogy is impressive: He Vand Landscape Studies, and regional planning at the Tflower borders. Banished from polite society, he mostly descends from the pygmy and from human beings with grow- addresses readers both within University of Massachusetts dwells in European allotment gardens and American ing disorders. He is a relative of the court dwarfs from the and beyond academia. These and adjunct professor at the blue-collar yards, where he seventeenth and eighteenth include our supporters and Bard Graduate Center, leads a most happy life. At best, centuries, who were valued colleagues in other academic reviews Myth and History in he is admired with an ironic highly, yet also caricatured, institutions and professions – the Creation of Yellowstone eye as a piece of kitsch. To because of their diminutive art and architectural histori- National Park by Paul make matters worse, the classic stature and deformities. ans, landscape architects and Schullery and Lee Whittlesey. 1937 Disney film, Snow White Sculpted series of courtiers as architects, environmentalists, The conservationist and and the Seven Dwarfs, caused dwarfs decorate several gardeners, and people who writer William deBuys offers this noble character to be trans- German and Austrian gar- travel to learn about the his perspective on how the formed into the likes of dens from this period. By the nature of places. natural landscape of northern Bashful, Sneezy, Sleepy, Happy, beginning of the nineteenth We think it is important to New Mexico is in a state of Grumpy, Dopey, and Doc. century, when the brothers feature many facets of land- profound transformation. The publication of Gnome Life: Grimm started to collect folk scape study and to draw per- In this issue, we have cho- A Monthly Celebration of and fairy tales (Grimm’s Fairy spectives from sources sen to bring to the fore the Secrets, Tales, and Whimsy, by Tales, 1819), the gnome beyond our own walls. In this part of garden history and Wil Huygen and the illustrator became thoroughly embed- issue we have invited land- landscape studies that deals Rien Poortvliet (Abrams, ded within the collective scape historian Marc Treib to with those very essences of 1999), made the garden Western imagination. Who is review The Changing Garden: Earth: gnomes, stones, and gnome suffer so much from not familiar with the charm- Four Centuries of European desert soil. While the consid- ing dwarfs and gnomes and American Art, a recent eration of gnomes may seem found in such children books whimsical to some readers, as Elsa Beskow’s Peter in these imaginary folkloric continued on page 4 continued on page 2 Suzanne Hahn, Garden Gnome, 1995. 1 Letter from the Editors New Course Offerings Calendar (continued) beings, which find their way The Bard Graduate Center is pleased to announce the addition Davis has published on various aspects of March 18–June 20, 2004 into the garden as fey orna- of two new course offerings this spring in Garden History and American landscape history and is the princi- The Devonshire Inheritance: ment, make us conscious of Landscape Studies. Vanessa Bezemer Sellers, who earned her pal editor of the forthcoming volume America’s Five Centuries of Collecting the power that the now M.A. and Ph.D. in art history at Princeton, is teaching “The Art National Park Roads and Parkways: Drawings at Chatsworth much-exploited deep forest and Architecture of the Baroque Garden.” Tim Davis, who holds from the Historic American Engineering Record. Comprising more than 200 and mineral-enriched under- a Ph.D. in American civilization from the University of Texas His course, which pays particular attention to works of art, the exhibition ground have had on the and currently serves as lead historian of the National Park intellectual developments of the past half cen- highlights the family’s private human imagination. Then Service’s Park Historic Structures and Cultural Landscapes tury, provides a sweeping overview of the ways in which the collection, not normally on there are those stony land- Program, is teaching “Interpreting Ordinary Landscapes.” study of “everyday,” or “vernacular” landscapes has emerged as a view to the public and rarely scapes that proclaim Earth’s Sellers is the author of Courtly vital scholarly, artistic, and literary pursuit. By examining the exhibited. It presents a com- bones. Machu-Picchu, where Gardens in Holland, 1600–1650: The work of important scholars, artists, writers, and popular social prehensive portrait of five superb Inca masonry is set in House of Orange and the Hortus commentators, students learn to read even the most “ordinary” centuries of artistic connois- dialogue with mountain Batavus. In her class, she charts the landscapes as significant cultural spaces. Drawing on recent seurship and intellectual pur- forms, and Petra, the ancient history of European gardens from the work in art history, sociology, cultural geography, documentary suits and is organized Nabataean desert city of nat- late 1500s through the early 1700s. photography, and environment psychology, the course explores chronologically by generation. ural cliffs carved into archi- Her students analyze landscape theory the ways in which landscapes are invested with meaning and The objects in each section tectural forms, remind us and design through contemporary considers their role in the construction and contestation of cul- have been carefully selected that stones are, as much as engravings, books, and treatises, and tural norms and values. The study of past and present land- to illustrate the interests and plants, an important part of trace the crosscurrents of cultural scapes thus becomes an inquiry into the interactions among the historical roles played by suc- landscape design. Marfa, influence as these images and texts were disseminated human mind, the physical environment, and a host of complex cessive family members. Texas, the semi-desert town throughout Europe. The course also addresses the influence of and often competing social factors – the transformation of Monday where artist Donald Judd cre- science and technology on culture during this rich period of abstract physical space into a richly textured mosaic of individu- March 22, 2004 ated a museum complex, and discovery, especially the technical advances enabling the creation alized and culturally resplendent places. 6:00 p.m. nearby Big Bend National of fountains and other waterworks. In addition, it focuses on Lecture by Kate Colquehoun, Park similarly extend the the era’s cultivation of many new plant species and the phenom- author of A Thing in meaning of the term land- enon of unbridled market enthusiasm known as . tulipomania Disguise: The Visionary Life scape beyond our traditional Students gain insight into the relationship between gardens and of Joseph Paxton notion of moist-climate the decorative arts as they examine the palaces and landscapes The Bard Graduate Center greenery. of Louis XIV, William and Mary, Peter the Great, and other Lecture Hall We value your ideas and princes of the period. (38 West 86th Street) suggestions for future issues Organized in association as we continue to build this with the Horticultural Society forum for literary conversa- of New York. General admis- tion about the history and sion: $20: seniors and meaning of place at the Bard members of the Horticultural Graduate Center and beyond. Society: $15 6:00 p.m. to 7:15 p.m.: lecture Elizabeth Barlow Rogers 7:15 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.: Editor book signing reception Erik de Jong Associate Editor Little Sparta, Stonypath, Dunsyre, near Lanark, Scotland. Garden design by Ian Hamilton Finlay. 2 Begun 1966. Joseph Paxton: Eminent consider the purpose, scope, science; how these disciplines September 23–December 3, where sheep graze and ponds Contributors Victorian Gardener and activities for the group. depended upon ongoing 2004 are ringed with wild vegeta- In 1826, the sixth duke of For more information or social and cultural changes; Ian Hamilton Finlay: tion. Like several eighteenth- Devonshire offered Joseph to register for the meeting, and how botany and horticul- Works on Paper century English gardens, Paxton (1801–1865) the posi- go to www.sah.org or call ture contributed to larger (UBS Paine-Webber Gallery, Little Sparta (so named by Ethan Carr is a visiting profes- tion of head gardener at 312-573-1365. changes in social and cultural 1285 Avenue of the Americas, Finlay following a protracted sor at the Bard Graduate Chatsworth, his Derbyshire practices. For program and between 51st and 52nd battle with local county Center, where he teaches Tuesday estate. The subsequent flow- registration materials, go to Streets. Organized under the authorities over a tax assess- “Central Park: The Landscape, May 4, 2004 ering of Paxton’s genius, www.doaks.org.

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