A History of Gardens 2 - BOTANY AND BOTANICAL ART

This online course from the Gardens Trust will be suitable for anyone curious about gardens and their stories – whether absolute beginners or those with some garden history knowledge. Running from April 2024 to April 2025, the course aims to help participants recognise important eras, themes and styles in mainly British garden history from the earliest times to today, grasp something of the social, economic, political and international contexts in which gardens have been created and find greater pleasure in visiting historic gardens. You can sign up for whole series or dip into individual talks. There will be opportunities to discuss issues with speakers after each talk, and short reading lists for further exploration.

A HISTORY OF GARDENS 2: 17th-CENTURY GARDENS

What is a garden? Why were they created as they were? What influences were at play in garden making, and how have gardens evolved and developed over time? These are the questions we will explore as we traverse the history of gardens through the ages.

Following on from our opening talks on early gardens, this second series will examine how gardens developed during the 17th century. We will explore how exotic plants from around the world started to appear in European gardens, and were captured in botanical art, before the tumultuous impact of the English civil wars on gardens and gardening from the 1640s. The second part of the century saw the rise of extravagant, dramatic styles, now known as baroque gardens and exemplified by the work of André Le Nôtre for the Sun King at Versailles. We will explore these gardens through an analysis of the work of Le Nôtre and his contemporaries in France, and the series will end with a talk scrutinising how the European baroque style played out in England.

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This ticket is for this individual talk and costs £8, and you may purchase tickets for other individual sessions via the links below, or you may purchase a ticket for the entire [second] series of 5 talks in our History of Gardens Course at £35 via the link here. (Gardens Trust members £6 each or all 5 for £26.25)

Ticket holders can join each session live and/or view a recording for up to 2 weeks afterwards.

Ticket sales close 4 hours before the talk.

Let us know if you missed the first series of A History of Gardens and would like to catch up with some or all of the talks. We hope to offer the chance to purchase access to the recordings before the second series starts.

Attendees will be sent a Zoom link 2 days prior to the start of the talk, and again a few hours before the talk (If you do not receive this link please contact us). A link to the recorded session will be sent shortly after each session and will be available for 2 weeks .

Due to a recent Apple decision to charge a 30% fee for paid online events unfortunately you may no longer be able to purchase this ticket from the Eventbrite iOS app. Please use a web browser on desktop or mobile to purchase or follow the link here.

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Week 1. 10th September: EARLY 17th-CENTURY PLANTS AND GARDENS with David Marsh. First in a series of 5 online lectures, £8 each or all 5 for £35 (Gardens Trust members £6 each or all 5 for £26.25)

Week 2. 17th September: BOTANY AND BOTANICAL ART with Twigs Way. Second in a series of 5 online lectures, £8 each or all 5 for £35 (Gardens Trust members £6 each or all 5 for £26.25)

Week 3. 24 September: BETWEEN KINGS: GARDENS OF THE MID 17th CENTURY with Jill Francis. Third in a series of 5 online lectures, £8 each or all 5 for £35 (Gardens Trust members £6 each or all 5 for £26.25)

Week 4. 1st October: THE FRENCH BAROQUE GARDEN with Gabriel Wick. Fourth in a series of 5 online lectures, £8 each or all 5 for £35 (Gardens Trust members £6 each or all 5 for £26.25)

Week 5. 8th October: THE BAROQUE IN ENGLAND with David Marsh. Last in a series of 5 online lectures, £8 each or all 5 for £35 (Gardens Trust members £6 each or all 5 for £26.25)

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Week 2. 17th September: BOTANY AND BOTANICAL ART with Twigs Way

The identification, depiction and celebration of plants is a key aspect of garden history, and one in which women have played a particularly important part. This highly illustrated talk will explore the role of female artists in floral and botanic art, focusing particularly on those working in the 17th century, but also looking forward to later artists. It will examine works by both 'amateur’ and professional female artists including Giovanna Garzonni, Maria van Oosterwijck, Maria Sibylla Merian, Rachel Ruysch, Elizabeth Blackwell, Mary Moser, Mary Delany and Augusta Withers.

Dr Twigs Way is a garden historian, writer and researcher. Much of her work has concentrated on the roles played by women in all forms of garden and plant-related spheres, and she is increasingly fascinated on the overlap between art, fashion, textiles and gardens. Her history of the chrysanthemum in art and culture was published by Reaktion in 2020 following an earlier work on the carnation. Twigs teaches for the Cambridge University Botanic Gardens and, from September 2024, will also be co-Course Director of the MA in Garden History at the University of Buckingham.

Image: detail, Maria van Oosterwijck, Flower Still Life (1669), from Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.

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We’re grateful to Wooden Books, sponsor of the first three series of A History of Gardens.

Wooden Books, the world’s leading Liberal Arts and Sciences pocket series.

From Mazes & Labyrinths to Mathematical Functions, from Mythological Animals to the Miracle of Trees. From Portals, to Proportion, to Poisonous Plants and Poetic Metre & Form. Wooden Books are beautifully illustrated on every page. Learn about Li. Slip into Shadows. Get a grip on the Golden Section. Small books, big ideas.

"Fascinating" FINANCIAL TIMES. "Beautiful" LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS. "Rich and Artful" THE LANCET. "Genuinely mind-expanding" FORTEAN TIMES. "Excellent" NEW SCIENTIST. "Stunning" NEW YORK TIMES.

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