Month: September 2024
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Flowers of Giverny
“All gardening is landscape painting,” said Alexander Pope, the English poet in the 18th century. The picturesque tradition continues to dominate the field of landscape architecture to the present day. Dotted across the history of landscaping are alternative points of view, however. For example, the Sacro Bosco garden was unlike any other design during the…
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The Peasant’s Garden
During the dog days of summer, the women of ancient Athens fashioned little gardens in baskets and pots, each holding a mix of quick-sprouting grain and herbs. These makeshift seedbeds were carried up the ladders onto the flat roofs of private houses and left to wilt in the sun – a botanical reenactment of the…
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The Kantha Jacket
Kantha, meaning “patched cloth”, refers to both the traditional craft of making quilted blankets as well as the stitch itself. The craft is native to rural Eastern South Asia, particularly Bangladesh and the neighboring Indian states of West Bengal and Odisha, along the Bay of Bengal. Originally made from old, recycled saris, the traditional kantha…
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The Great Wave
The Great Wave off Kanagawa is Katsushika Hokusai’s first and most celebrated work in his collection of Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji. It is of the Ukiyo-e genre, meaning “pictures of the floating world”, which flourished in 17th-to-19th-century Japan. The woodblock print depicts three elements: three boats weathering the stormy sea, the great wave, and…
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