Jane Philbrick Floating Sculpture: November 10

With many thanks to support from the Center for Advanced Visual Studies and the Kelly-Douglas Fund for Traveling Fellowships at MIT and Location One in New York, I travel to London and Paris to research the Floating Sculpture and the Rammed Earth Sculpture Garden.

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London

I attend "The Artist and the Garden" symposium at the Garden Museum (http://www.museumgardenhistory.org/).

Geffrye Museum curator Christine Lalumia presents on the domestic gardens featured in the paintings of James Tissot (1833 - 1902). In contrast to the strict protocol of the drawing room, the garden, as well as the conservatory, was a socially more open, potentially promiscuous, place. With the proliferation of the domestic garden in the Victorian period--the "big, big gardens" of "big, big houses"--there was a sense that "all kinds of things could happen behind these walls." Lalumia discussed Tissot's use of the garden to allegorize as well as document modern women.

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Garden historian David Jacques presents on the restoration of the landscape at Chiswick. "One of the problems for the historian," he observes indicating the archive garden plan, "is these writhing paths. Could they have really been like this?"

Jane Philbrick, The Artist and the Garden 3

Dr. Jacques notes the preponderance of Dutch topographers working in England in the 18th century.

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Accompanying a slide show of his images, garden photographer Andrew Lawson presents a list he devised as a rubric against which photography's capacity to capture and express the sensual life of the garden can be evaluated:

Experiencing a Garden

The relationship of spaces

The wind in the trees

The disposition of beds, trees and buildings

Where the paths lead

Dappled sunlight on the lawn

The encircling landscape

The crunch of gravel underfoot

Plant associations

The fragrance of crushed thyme; the perfume of roses

The sense of place

Seasonal changes

Sculpture, ornament and garden furniture

The sound of water

The heron overhead; a kingfisher flash

Flower detail

The passing of time

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Paris

I visit with Isabelle Lemaistre, curator of 19th-century sculpture at le Louvre, where together we view the "French Bronzes" exhibition as well as personal favorites in the collection. I linger to see the Mantegna exhibition and meander the vast and opulent Museum.