Table Of ContentTHINKING THE SCULPTURE
GARDEN
This innovative book poses two, deceptively simple, questions: what is a sculp
ture garden, and what happens when you give equal weight to the main elem
ents of landscape, planting and artwork?
Its wide-ranging frame of reference, including the USA, Europe and Japan, is
brought into focus through Tremenheere Sculpture Garden, Cornwall, with which
the book begins and ends. Effectively less than 15 years old, and largely the work of
one man, Tremenheere affords an opportunity to examine as work-in-progress the
creation of a new kind of sculpture garden. Including a historical overview, the
book traverses multiple ways of seeing and experiencing sculpture gardens, culmin
ating in an exploration of their relevance as ‘cultural ecology’ in the context of glo
balisation, urbanisation and climate change. The thinking here is non-dualist and is
broadly aligned with New Materialisms and Material Feminisms to explore our
place as humans in the non-human world on which we depend. Eminent contribu
tors, including John Dixon Hunt, Georges Descombes, Bernard Lassus and David
Leatherbarrow, approach these issues through practices and theories of landscape
architecture; garden and art making; history and writing; and philosophy.
Richly illustrated with over 100 images, including a colour plate section, the
book will primarily appeal to those engaged in professional or academic research,
along with sculpture garden visitors, who will find new and surprising ways of
experiencing plants and art in natural and urban settings.
Penny Florence is Professor Emerita at The Slade School of Fine Art, University
College London, UK. Previous appointments include Chair of Humanities and
Design Sciences, Art Center, Pasadena, USA; Head of Research Programmes at
The Slade; Professor of Contemporary Arts and Director of Research at Falmouth
University and Co-Director of Women’s Studies, University of Exeter, UK. She
continues to exhibit art works and films and she is a published poet. She has also
given public performances/exhibitions of digital poetry at Tate Modern, Tate
Britain and internationally. Her international publications include a number of
books and many articles on issues related to art, poetry and feminist philosophy/
theory, including especially sculpture and word-image (sculpture, poetry and
painting). She has published on the sculptors Barbara Hepworth and Liz Larner
among others, and contributed to the two-volume book Sculpture in 20th-century
Britain (Henry Moore Institute). The French poet Stéphane Mallarmé in relation
to painting is another sustained interest, as are feminism, innovation, experimen
talism and the general shifting of boundaries.
THINKING THE
SCULPTURE GARDEN
Art, Plant, Landscape
Edited by Penny Florence
First published 2020
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2020 selection and editorial matter, Penny Florence; individual
chapters, the contributors
The right of Penny Florence to be identified as the author of the
editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has
been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means,
now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and
recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without
permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record has been requested for this book
ISBN: 978-0-367-19023-1 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-367-19024-8 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-0-429-19988-2 (ebk)
Typeset in Bembo
by Swales & Willis, Exeter, Devon, UK
CONTENTS
Contributors’ biographies vii
Acknowledgments x
Note on method: Diffracting the sculpture garden 1
Introduction: The ground 8
PART I
Tremenheere sculpture garden 17
1 Tremenheere: Place of the long stones 19
Penny Florence
2 The seed in the stone: Peter Randall-Page’s exploration
of energetic structure 45
Penny Florence
3 Mono-ha: Paying attention: Japanese art in/of the garden 60
Gay Watson
PART II
Placing history in/of the garden 71
4 Sculpture gardens and sculpture in gardens 73
John Dixon Hunt
vi Contents
5 The garden: Art object 92
Bernard Lassus
6 From pedestal to place 101
David Leatherbarrow
7 Little Sparta: The neo-classical re-arming of the
sculpture garden 125
Patrick Eyres
8 How to make a path: The Swiss Way project, 1991 140
Georges Descombes
PART III
Return to Tremenheere 157
9 Landscape, art, plant, event 159
Penny Florence
10 Conclusion: The art of the plant; the art of the earth
(far other worlds) 179
Penny Florence
Appendix: Tremenheere plant list and map 197
Bibliography 212
Index 215
’
CONTRIBUTORS BIOGRAPHIES
Penny Florence (Editor) is Professor Emerita at The Slade School of Fine
Art, University College London. Previous appointments include Chair of
Humanities and Design Sciences, Art Center, Pasadena; Head of Research Pro-
grammes at The Slade; Co-Director of Women’s Studies at Exeter University; Pro
fessor of Contemporary Arts & Director of Research at Falmouth University. She
continues to exhibit art works and films and she is a published poet. She has given
public performances/exhibitions of digital poetry at Tate Modern, Tate Britain and
internationally. Her international publications include a number of books and many
articles on issues related to art, poetry and feminist philosophy/theory, including
especially sculpture and word-image (sculpture, poetry and painting). She has pub
lished on the sculptors Barbara Hepworth and Liz Larner among others, and con
tributed to the two-volume book Sculpture in 20th-Century Britain (Henry Moore
Institute). The French poet Stéphane Mallarmé in relation to painting is another
sustained interest, as are innovation, experimentalism and transdisciplinarity.
John Dixon Hunt is Emeritus Professor of the History and Theory of Land
scape, University of Pennsylvania, and editor of the journal Studies in the History of
Gardens and Designed Landscapes and the series editor of Penn Studies in Landscape
Architecture, where over 40 titles have so far appeared. Professor Hunt is Cheva
lier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, (French Ministry of Culture) and received
an honorary D.Litt from Bristol University. He has taught at Harvard, Leiden,
York and London Universities among others, and served as Director of Studies in
Landscape Architecture at Dumbarton Oaks (Trustees for Harvard University),
Washington, DC. Among his many publications dedicated to the study and ana
lysis of garden landscapes and their histories, are A World of Gardens (2012) and
The Making of Place: Modern and Contemporary Gardens (2015), both from Reaktion
Books, and The Venetian City Garden: Place, Typology, & Perception (Birkhäuser,
viii Contributors’ biographies
2009). With Michael Leslie, he is editor of the six-volume book, A Cultural
History of Gardens (Bloomsbury, 2013).
Georges Descombes is one of the most original practitioners of landscape
architecture of recent times. Descombes has a subtle design approach that reflects
three guiding (aesthetic/ethical) principles: minimal insertion (consulting and
respecting the existing, and then doing the most with the fewest resources);
identifiable interventions (what has been added should be apparent) and revers
ibility (what has been done may be modified as conditions change). Descombes’
landscapes are characterized by an intensive investigation of the qualities and his
tory of the site, deriving their vocabularies from the existing characteristics of
the place. His best-known works are the Bijlmer Memorial in Amsterdam, the
Parc de Lancy in Geneva and the Swiss Path around Lake Uri in Switzerland.
Other recent projects include the Parc de la Cour du Maroc in Paris,
a riverfront park in Architect and Landscape in Lyon, and the transformation of
the River Aire outside Geneva. Descombes has taught at several universities
including UC Berkeley, Harvard, Penn and the University of Geneva, where he
was Professor of Architecture and one of the founders of the graduate program
in landscape architecture.
Patrick Eyres is Director of the New Arcadian Press and the driving force
behind the 53 New Arcadian Journals and the 70 accompanying New Arcadian
Broadsheets (1981–2016). He has devised, edited, designed and published each
edition, including typesetting, pagination and the preparation of artwork for
print. He is an author who has published in numerous books and other journals,
and lectured across the UK as well as in the USA and mainland Europe. He is
also co-editor, with Fiona Russell, and contributor to Sculpture and the Garden
(Ashgate, 2006), editor and contributor to Wentworth Castle and Georgian Political
Gardening (WCHT, 2012); co-editor, with James Lomax, and contributor to Dip
lomats, Goldsmiths and Baroque Court Culture (WCHT, 2014). His latest book, with
Karen Lynch, is The Yorkshire Red Books of Humphry Repton, Landscape Gardener
(NAP, 2018). Finally, having had the good fortune to know Ian Hamilton Finlay
for almost 30 years, he is a conservation adviser to the Little Sparta Trust.
Bernard Lassus is a distinguished French landscape architect. He cites four orienta
tions that underpin his work: art, research, teaching and his practice as colourist and
architect-landscapist. Early years studying in various ateliers in Paris (including with
Fernand Léger) led to an enviable record of international exhibitions and Biennales
(Centre Pompidou, Sao Paolo, Milan, London) and commissions for numerous fac
tories/workplaces, cultural centres etc., bringing new materials to the creation of
many moods: matter/light/colour. His research, culminating in the original concept
of ‘Habitants-Paysagistes’, was published in his 1977 book Jardins Imaginaires, Habit
ants-Paysagistes and was described by Claude Levi-Strauss as a new field of study. Pres
tigious commissions include projects for cruise ships, French Ministerial bodies,
Contributors’ biographies ix
motorway companies and rest areas, the Corderie Royale park in Rochefort as well
as the Garden of Hypotheses, Domaine Chaumont-sur-Loire.
David Leatherbarrow is Professor of Architecture and Chair of the Graduate
Group in Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania, where he has taught
since 1984. He received his B.Arch. from the University of Kentucky and holds
a PhD in Art from the University of Essex. He has also taught at Cambridge
and Westminster Universities in the UK. His publications include, On Weather
ing: The Life of Buildings in Time, with Mohsen Mostafavi (MIT, 1993); Uncom
mon Ground: Architecture, Topography, and Technology, (MIT, 2000); Architecture
Oriented Otherwise (Princeton Architectural Press, 2008); Topographical Stories:
Studies in Landscape and Architecture (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004); and
Three Cultural Ecologies (Routledge, 2017).
Gay Watson has a PhD in Religious Studies from SOAS, University of London and
is also trained as a psychotherapist. Her nuanced and subtle approach brings together
mind sciences, art and gender. Her publications include A Philosophy of Emptiness
(Reaktion 2014), Beyond Happiness (2007) and Attention, Beyond Mindfulness (Reak
tion 2017). They evince her sustained concern with the dialogue between Buddhist
thought, psychotherapy and the Mind Sciences, all of which inform how she views
art and the garden. Attention is an exploration of its titular concept through many dis
ciplines and ways of life. It contains interviews with many scientists and artists skilled
in practices of attention. Her most recent book is Buddhism AND (Mud Pie Books,
2019), which is a short exploration of ancient ideas of interdependence and emptiness
in contemporary settings.
