Women and the Collaborative Art of Gardens : From Antiquity to the Present

Women and the Collaborative Art of Gardens explores the garden and its agency in the history of the built and natural environments, as evidenced in landscape architecture, literature, art, archaeology, history, photography, and film. Throughout the book, each chapter centers the act of collaboration, from garden clubs of the early twentieth century as powerful models of women’s leadership, to the more intimate partnerships between family members, to the delicate relationship between artist and subject. Women emerge in every chapter, whether as gardeners, designers, owners, writers, illustrators, photographers, filmmakers, or subjects, but the contributors to this dynamic collection unseat common assumptions about the role of women in gardens to make manifest the significant ways in which women write themselves into the accounts of garden design, practice, and history. The book reveals the power of gardens to shape human existence, even as humans shape gardens and their representations in a variety of media, including brilliantly illuminated manuscripts, intricately carved architectural spaces, wall paintings, black and white photographs, and wood cuts. Ultimately, the volume reveals that gardens are best apprehended when understood as products of collaboration. The book will be of interest to scholars and students of gardens and culture, ancient Rome, art history, British literature, medieval France, film studies, women’s studies, photography, African American Studies, and landscape architecture. This book explores the garden and its agency in the history of the built and natural environments, as evidenced in landscape architecture, literature, art, archaeology, history, photography, and film. It reveals the significant ways in which women write themselves into the accounts of garden design, practice, and history. Cover 1 Endorsements Page 2 Half Title 4 Series Page 5 Title Page 6 Copyright Page 7 Dedication 8 Table of Contents 10 List of Contributors 12 Acknowledgments 14 Introduction 16 1 Garden Design as Feminist Ground 25 2 Pompeian Gardens and the Archaeological Imagination 49 3 The Garden’s Transformational Artificein Valois France 81 4 Garden Theory, Gardening Practice: William and Dorothy Wordsworth 106 5 Places for the Spirit, Photographs of Traditional African American Gardens 127 6 On the Diagonal, through the Window: Marie Menken’s Glimpse of the Garden, 1957 and Rosalind Nashashibi’s Vivian’s Garden, 2017 144 7 Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell at Kew Gardens 160 Epilogue: What If We Start with the Garden? 186 Index 192 Landscape,architecture;,African,American,Studies;,Ecocriticism;,Women;,Ancient,Rome;,Environmental,humanities;,Medieval,France;,Film,studies;,Art,history;,British,literature;,Gardens;,Wordsworth;,Virginia,Woolf Landscape architecture,African American Studies,Ecocriticism,Women,Ancient Rome,Environmental humanities,Medieval France,Film studies,Art history,British literature,Gardens,Wordsworth,Virginia Woolf