The Artist's Garden

The secret spaces that inspired great art

Jackie Bennett

• Publisher: Frances Lincoln
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781781318751
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Horticulture
• Index: Biological Sciences

The Artist's Garden offers an intriguing study into 20 gardens that have inspired and been home to some of the greatest painters of history. The most alluring image of an artist at work is surely one where he or she has come out of their studio, set up their easel on the garden path, pulled on a hat to shade their eyes from the sun and taken their brush and palette in hand. This sumptuously illustrated and fascinating book delves into thestories behind the gardens which inspired some of the most beautiful and important works of art. These gardens not only supplied the inspiration for creative works but also illuminate the professional motivation and private life of the artists themselves – from Cezanne's house in the south of France to Childe Hassam at Celia Thaxter's garden off the coast off Maine. Flowers and gardens have often been the first choice for artists looking for a subject. A garden close to the artist's studio is not only convenient for daily material and ideas, but also has the advantage of changing through the seasons and over time. Claude Monet's Giverny was the catalyst for hundreds of great paintings (by Monet and other artists), each one different from the one before. Sometimes a whole village becomes the focus for a colony of artists as at Gerberoy in Picardy and Skagen on the northernmost tip of Denmark. This book is about the real homes and gardens that inspired these great artists – gardens that can still be visited today. The relationship between artist and garden is a complex one. A few artists, including Pierre Bonnard and his neighbour Monet were keen gardeners, as much in love with their plants as their work, while for others like Sorolla in Madrid, his courtyard home was both a sanctuary and a source of ideas. This book is as unmissable for art lovers as it is for anyone who knows the joy of time spent in gardens, offering an intriguing insight into the lives of these great painters and the gardens which inspired them to their creative heights.

THE ARTIST AT HOME AND AT WORK

Leonardo da Vinci

Peter Paul Rubens

Paul Cézanne

Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Max Liebermann

Joaquín Sorolla

Henri Le Sidaner

Emil Nolde

Frida Kahlo

Salvador Dalí

Leonardo da Vinci

Amboise, France

This early sixteenth-century self-portrait is thought to have been painted when Leonardo da Vinci was in his early fifties.

THE MAN WE KNOW simply as ‘Leonardo’ will be remembered not only as an artist, but also as an inventor, military architect, botanist, engineer, cartographer, sculptor and philosopher. Although he was brilliantly talented, Leonardo was not a prolific painter and few of his artworks survive today – his writings and polymathic mind will perhaps prove to be more enduring than his painting of The Last Supper on the walls of the Santa Maria delle Grazie convent in Milan. Yet there is one work that has captured the public’s imagination like no other. The Mona Lisa is not only Leonardo’s most famous painting, it also holds clues to the theories he held about the intimate connection between nature and the human body. A keen botanist, moving to Le Clos Lucé in France confirmed Leonardo’s passion for the natural world and particularly for plants, which he studied closely at his home by the Loire, where he spent his final years.

The Italian artist spent the last years of his life at the Château du Clos Lucé in the Loire valley at the invitation of King François I.

EARLY PATRONS

Leonardo da Vinci took his name from the commune of Vinci, where he was born in the village of Anchiano, not far from Florence. The son of Piero da Vinci, a successful notary, Leonardo was born illegitimately to Caterina, a servant in his father’s house. When Leonardo was five years old, his mother was no longer able to support him and placed him permanently with the da Vinci family. He was raised by his paternal grandparents and an uncle, who took the boy horse riding around the Tuscan countryside. It was there, among the Montalbano hills, that Leonardo discovered the natural world and grew to believe that every part of man corresponded with every part of nature.

Taught to paint in Florence by Verrocchio, Leonardo’s career never followed a straight path. At the age of twenty-four he, along with several other members of Verrocchio’s household, was prosecuted for homosexuality, although the charges were later dropped. By the time he was thirty, he was receiving commissions for large religious works and, in 1482, he won the patronage of Ludovico Sforza, the Duke of Milan. In a famous letter to the Duke, Leonardo claimed that he could ‘construct bridges which are light and can be easily transported … drain water from moats … contrive catapults and weapons for firing arrows … and carry out sculpture in marble, bronze and clay.’ This confidence was not arrogance; he was a skilled practical engineer with a fantastically inventive mind.

Leaving Milan when the French invaded in 1499, he went on to sell his services to Cesare Borgia – the infamous politician and commander of the Papal armies. In 1503, Leonardo was commissioned by the Florentine minister of justice Piero Soderina to paint one of two wall paintings for the Palazzo Vecchio, the city hall in Florence – the other was by Michelangelo. The paintings celebrated famous Florentine victories; Leonardo’s was the Battle of Anghiari, fought in 1440, and on the opposite wall Michelangelo worked on...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Contents
• Introduction
• The Artist at Home and at Work
• The Artists’ Community
• Selected reading
• Visiting details
• Index
• Acknowledgments
• Picture credits
• Copyright