Sunday, January 08, 2006

Garden Architecture

"The composition of picturesque gardens requires, at least a knowledge of the principles of elementary structures, and of ornamenting, since their embellishment consists partly in the erection of little allegorical monuments, the whole richness of which often depends but on their foreign form on their ornaments, these gardens, therefore, could not remain any longer under the direction of mere ordinary gardeners, but are become the province of artists, painters and architectects: it was for the latter in particular to being these gardens to perfection."







This 1809 trilingual book was written by German-born, French-naturalized architect and draftsman, Jean Charles Krafft. Krafft did almost all of the 92 drawings and the corresponding engravings were done by Boulay, Gossard and Joannee.

I'm presuming Krafft wrote the english translation - somewhat more embellished than the engravings themselves but somewhat less aesthetically pleasing. This is one of a number of architectural publications he released.

Plans of the most picturesque gardens in France, England and Germany, and of the edifices, monuments, fabrics etc which contribute to their embellishment, of every kind of architecture, such as Chinese, Egyptian, English, Arabian, Moorish, etc is online in multiple sized formats at the wonderful University of Wisconsin 'Digital Library for the Decorative Arts and Material Culture: Image and Text Collections' website. (thumbnail page)

6 comments :

Anonymous said...

I love your place so much (i think i've told you that before)
but, i take so much pleasure, and learn new things, that i had to say it again.
and as you are writting now on gardens,
i wanted to share with you:"A Garden For Moonlight"

http://spaces.msn.com/members/MoooonRiver/Blog/cns!1pddymn7pnQ9w-QSot8Fm4Zw!2863.entry

Anonymous said...

some more interesting maps for you:


http://www.barron.co.uk/?pgid=42.

i loved the "map of Bohemia in the shape of a Rose"

peacay said...

Thanks for the kind words moon.

That Barron Maps page is what I found the other day looking for details about the middle east map - which led to the 'Aleph' map post.

And I've already got that Bohemia-rose map saved on my desktop. Sometimes I collect things along the way for possible future posts, if I remember where they came from. So you pick my tastes well. Heh.

peacay said...

Oh and thanks for the Ethel Anderson...

'..the hesitant sibilants of the waves..'

L said...

beautiful!

Anonymous said...

PK, You have won a Cliopatria Award for Best New Blog of 2005: http://hnn.us/blogs/entries/20254.html. There is a logo that is particularized for the category of the Award for which you are the winner. We'd be delighted if you were to decide to display the logo on your blog. Please contact me at: ralphluker*at*mindspring*dot*com for particulars. Congratulations!

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