Renaissance Gardens

The Getty blog has a post about Renaissance gardens, and some illustrations of gardens from manuscripts in the Getty's collection.

A “Renaissance garden” is not a singular concept, and it can’t be delineated neatly along geographic or chronological lines. But we can make some broad generalizations about gardens, botany, and the natural world during the Renaissance in Europe. Villa gardens in central Italy, for example, were often designed around an ideal, proportional system of geometry, according to which the garden linked the house and the surrounding countryside along an axis. This planting system was later applied to gardens beyond Italy, and although many of these gardens have changed since the time of their cultivation, an illumination from a 17th-century German manuscript (below) presents a house and garden planted with a grid-axis that belonged to one Magdalene Pairin in 1502, over a century earlier. This garden appears much the same today as it did when this manuscript was created. See full post here.

Gardens and Politics | Free Talk at MFU

I am giving a talk for the Melbourne Free University next week on Gardens and Politics in history. See the blurb below. It is free to attend and a very relaxed atmosphere and I encourage people to come along and enjoy a glass of wine and join in the discussion.

It is next Tuesday 26th February at 6:30pm (the MFU website here). Details about the venue and other talks in the series are also here.

Katrina Grant | Gardens and Politics in the Early Modern Era 

The way that nature has been shaped into landscapes and gardens has often been a political act that aimed to promote a personal or national identity. Gardens are symbols of a society’s attitude to nature and to the social order (for instance, who is allowed in and who is not). Political messages are often woven through the landscapes of gardens when they are created and changing attitudes can see landscapes reworked to reflect new power structures and new political realities. Too often as modern visitors we are not given any sense of this, with gardens presented simply as pleasurable and/or grandiose. In this talk I will present the political side of a number of sixteenth- to eighteenth-century European gardens from France, Italy and the UK.

Some images of a few of the gardens that I will be talking about are below.

Temple of British Worthies

The Temple of Ancient Virtue

Fireworks at Versailles

View of Versailles by Pierre Patel c. 1668

Review of 'The Four Horsemen'

I wrote this review of the NGV's current print exhibition The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Death for the Melbourne Art Network. You can read it in its entirety here:

The ‘Four Horsemen’ exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria draws together a rich, varied and evocative selection of images of death: the horseman crushing rich and poor alike beneath the hooves of his skeletal horse; the shadowy figure stalking the young and the beautiful; the horrors of war; the terrors of the final Apocalypse. The images in this exhibition are a window into a period when belief in the imminence of the Apocalypse was coupled with the more mundane fear of death from disease, accident or war. There is much that still resonates strongly today. We may not fear a religious apocalypse—though the, mostly, tongue-in-cheek panic about the Mayan prediction of the end of the world in 2012 suggests that traditional ideas of the apocalypse still capture our imaginations—but we have our own fears: the sense of the impending doom of climate-change, the fear of our own death or that of our loved ones. This exhibition gives us a chance to reflect on how the ever-present fear of death and disaster was dealt with in Early Modern Europe; it reminds us too that, although much has changed, the fear of brutality and death remains a common preoccupation... CONT.

AcWriMo goals

I'm participating in AcWriMo (Academic Writing Month - you can read more about it here) as I feel the need to set myself some more challenging goals and also be a bit more accountable. Without the structure of a PhD or external funding for a project or a proper ongoing academic position of any kind it can be hard to motivate myself to do more than keep submitting postdoc applications and then letting all the little bits of casual and volunteer work I do take over the rest of my time. However, as I keep writing my CV for jobs I am conscious that I haven't had a publication since mid last year and I haven't even submitted any for publication, nor have I been particularly rigorous about putting in abstracts for conferences that might result in a publication.

November is going to be a slightly mad month as I am in Sydney for a conference next weekend, the journal I am an editor for is due to launch in mid-November, and I have another postdoc due at the end of the month. But there are plenty of days in November to fit writing in, and part of the point of AcWriMo is to just get the damn writing done and stop coming up with excuses.

My main goal is not to write a set amount of words (but I might keep a tally as I like tallies) but to write every single day for at least 2 hours, or four pomodori (25 minute bouts w. 5 minute breaks). I want to establish a routine of using at least 2 hours a day for work that is just mine.

The projects I will work on and plan to make decent progress on or finish are

1. Paper for Sydney (app. 1000 words)
2. Abstract for AAH conference (250 words - but I will need to map out the idea in more detail to wrie a good abstract)
3. Postdoc due at the end of the month (1000 words)
4. Review of the NGV Apocalypse show for the Melbourne Art Network (1000 words)
5. Short article about the Edward Haytley paintings in the NGV - this is something I have started and done all the research for but which has stalled (1000 words)
6. Write article about Versailles based on my thesis chapter (app. 6000 words)
7. Write article about William Kent based on unused research from PhD (4000 words)
8. Try and write in this blog more - it's not exactly academic but I like the idea of getting back into the habit of writing short pieces on what I am researching, reading or looking at (though putting up blog posts does tend to be an exercise in waiting for photos to upload rather than writing...).

That only adds up to around 14000 words (I know some people are planning on 50 000!) but some of it is not just simple writing but will require a bit of reading, note taking and library visiting and I guess if I surpass my expectations I can add more goals!

Snapshot East Melbourne

I hadn't noticed this place till recently, unusual style for East Melbourne, not many warehouse type conversions.

Restored Poussin at the NGV

The NGV unveiled Nicolas Poussin's Crossing of the Red Sea on Wednesday after 12 months of cleaning. It looks pretty spectacular. I remember well how the painting looked before leaning as it was one that I studied as an undergrad and then, in turn, have studied with undergrads when I have taught Baroque Art. But even if you don't closely recall how it looked before, how it looks now makes it well worth a visit.

Nicolas Poussin The Crossing of the Red Sea 1632-34 oil on canvas, 155.6 x 215.3 cm National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Felton Bequest, 1948

I wrote a longer piece on the painting's restoration, which is published on the Melbourne Art Network and you can read it here http://melbourneartnetwork.com.au/2012/05/02/news-ngv-unveils-nicolas-poussins-restored-the-crossing-of-the-red-sea/


I also ended up in the ABC news story on it when I was trying to get a closer look and chat to the conservator Carl Villis: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-05-02/new-face-of-poussin-masterpiece-revealed/3985142?section=entertainment

Snapshot | Richmond Garden

A Garden of small hanging succulents and one huge cactus. I love how large and out of proportion it is. It is like some succulent guardian of the weatherboard house.

Snapshots, Richmond

I like the light on days like today when one minute it is is raining horizontally and the next the sun comes out, photos from my late afternoon wander though West Richmond.

Modern houses in Richmond, quite a lot of this cheek-by-jowl with nineteenth-century terraces and weatherboards, some really good and some a bit average, this isn't my favourite but it looked good in the sun.

Red brick corner shop.

Back of the 'All Nations Hotel' on Lennox St.

Terrace Houses on York St.

Art Deco 'Davis Relova Laundry' , building designed by Walter Mason, apparently it was converted to apartments several years ago, more here. Facade is looking a bit shabby

Snapshot, St Patrick's Cathedral from Parliament Gardens

I always enjoy when you spot a piece of architecture from a new angle and through a new frame.

Snapshot Castlemaine

Waiting on Castlemaine PLatform 2 for the afternoon train to Melbourne, catching some sunshine after a cold few days in Daylesford.

Bamburgh Castle, Northumberland

Sorting through photos and these are some of my favourites because the weather was just glorious. Although my real focus on this trip has been English gardens I have a bit of a thing for proper fortified castles that tower above the landscape. I stopped at this one during a drive up the east coast in Northumberland after visiting the recent garden at Alnwick Castle. It is quite close to Lindisfarne. The coast line is very beautiful and has what I think of (in my prejudiced way) as proper beaches, with golden sand and very little development, unlike the southern rocky beaches and the built up seaside towns in places like Brighton. There has been a castle here since about the 7th century AD I think, and i was the seat of the kings of Northumnbria at the time when England was split into several kingdoms.There is more history on the websit if you are interested. http://www.bamburghcastle.com/history.php

Photos. I didn't go in as I had to drive on to Scotland but I circled around the outside. Do you like the dramatic contrasts between blue sky and clouds in a period of only about 40 minutes!? Typical English summer weather.

Snapshots, Melbourne Uni

I was waiting for someone outside the 1888 building at Melbourne Uni the other day. I have been there so much over the past decade as a student and as staff but because I work there I tend not to take many photos. I had some time on my hands, and a camera and the sun was shining so here a few snaps.

 The 188 building itself. I like all it crowded ornament set against the red brick. There is always something about brick as a material on a façade that helps to tone down crazy ornament in a way a stucco or rendered façade wouldn't. There is something almost mannerist about the ornament, the crowded banded columns and the strange spiky pyramids. Though it lacks the elegance of more sophisticated mannerist architecture, everything is a bit crowded, a bit squeezed, but I still like it. 

I have to admit to never taking much notice of this pub, I don't really like it as a place to go (the interior is pretty awful, blonde tiles etc). But in the afternoon autumn sun the outside looks pretty good. I am guessing it was built in 1926 as the date above the door suggests, it has been designed to look older unlike a few of the other deco style pubs around this area.

Snapshot, Collingwood

Somewhere in Collingwood, not sure, somewhere near Rokeby St, maybe even on Rokeby St?

Snapshots, Adelaide

A photo I took last October. I didn't have much else to do in Adelaide than walk around the city for hours on end, which suited me just fine. I wandered down lots of small streets and found some lovely little buildings. This small shop is on Compton St, just near the Central Markets.

I was struck by this shop and it had a reassuring small blue plaque. The plaque reads

This small building was originally built as a house by Edward Moore in 1817. A shopfront was added by the next owner, baker Matthew Madge, in 1898-99. Bert Edwards, one of Adelaide's most colourful and notable citizens, opened a tea room here in 1913. It was immensely popular, particularly on Friday nights when the rear of the shop was used for playing the then illegal game of two-up.

I think I like that last use the best. And I am guessing that at some point it had something to do with the Metropolitan Saw Works, though that sounds like a very big thing for such a small shop.

Snapshots, Ballarat

View of the Mining Exchange and Post Office, Lydiard St Nth.

Begonias at the Begonia Festival, Ballarat Botanic Gardens.

Lavandula, Hepburn Springs

I went to Lavandula, a Lavender farm and garden in Hepburn Springs the Friday before last. It had rained heavily all morning so the sky was grey and the ground was damp and the light wasn't the best for photos. After a month of heavy rain the gardens were very lush and green. The old buildings date back to the 1860s when it was a dairy farm set up by a Swiss-Italian migrant, the property was more-or-less abandoned and then bought by Carol White about twenty years ago. It has a lavender farm (as you would expect) around the property, as well as vegetable gardens, fruit trees, geese, even a donkey. The new owner aimed to create a farm and gardens inspired by Italian, or Swiss Italian, farms. It definitely has an Italian feel to it with grape vines and lines of pointy trees. 

Some of the old buildings almost completely covered in grape vines.

Simple slate paving forms a path through the green grass.

Freshly pruned lavender, the farm had both these 'balls' of lavender, that you often see in photos of French and Italian lavender farms, as well as less controlled plants.

Trees in a row.

View back across one of the lavender beds toward the old milking shed (now the shop). All the plantings were laid out in a visually interesting way, often bordered by other plants. You can see here how they have created visual variety by pruning the central lavender plants but leaving the ones around the edges to grow in a more wild manner.

View across the field towards the gentle rolling hills. These low hills are typical of the Hepburn/ Daylesford area, so many farms are set in these shallow valleys.

The dam, or pond, or lake, not sure what they called it. A range of European trees and eucalypts, a very 'Victorian' view.

Lavender! The whole garden was infused with the smell of lavender, not quite overpowering but very present.

The 'wild' lavender sea.

A green quince, this got me excited about the arrival of quince season.

I guess some kind of old dairy farm thing being used as a tub for waterlilies, very effective.

I can never remember the name of these flowers, I have asked about 100 times and i never retain it. Anyway here they are after the petals have fallen off. Suggestive and sculptural!

More views of the plantings, I like all the different heights from the tall pines, to the medium height fruit trees to the low growing lavender.

Fields and fields of lavender.

The vegie patch.

A very large zucchini.

Blackberries. They were tasty. I hope they didn't mind me eating a few.

More fruit trees, and non fruit trees and an old cart.

I liked all the vines growing over the various frameworks and the closely planted trees, it gave the area around the old house and dairy a lovely intimate feeling.

Another field of lavender, you get the idea.

Lavender drying under the verandah of the old farmhouse.

The verandah on the old house.

Jewel spider, isn't it magnificent? Look at it's spikes!

 The donkey.