- Venue
- Audley End House and Gardens
- Starts
- Wednesday, June 21, 2023
- Ends
- Monday, October 30, 2023
- Address
- Off London Road, Saffron Walden, Essex, CB11 4JF
- Location
- East England
- Organiser
- Audley End House and Gardens
The Garden Seekers: an artistic lens on the gardens of Essex
Essex Gardens Trust artist in residence Jane Frederick invites you to take an optical promenade through the great gardens of Essex in a new installation of works now on exhibition in the magnificent Robert Adam rooms.
Jane takes inspiration from the early 20th century ‘garden seekers’ who travelled Italy documenting important historical villas and gardens. She has been working closely with garden teams, curators and archivists to unravel and reimagine the past, present, and future of the region’s most captivating gardens.
Old Garden Magic and the Italian influence
In her celebrated 1904 book Italian Villas and Their Gardens, American author Edith Wharton introduces the reader to the notion of ‘old garden magic’. Wharton’s extensive travels across Italy prompted her to identify the elements that allow us to understand the lure and wonder of formal gardens. Maxfield Parrish’s illustrations, which accompany her text, present the reader with dreamlike portals into the garden spaces.
‘The traveller returning from Italy, with his eyes and imagination full of the ineffable Italian garden-magic, knows vaguely that the enchantment exists; that he has been under its spell, and that it is more potent, more enduring, more intoxicating to every sense than the most elaborate and glowing effects of modern horticulture; but he may not have found the key to the mystery. Is it because the sky is bluer, because the vegetation is more luxuriant’? Edith Wharton
The new works in this exhibition respond to the idea of ‘old garden magic’ in a contemporary context. Working with optical lenses, Jane focuses our attention on key features and perspectives within six treasured gardens in Essex: Audley End, Easton Lodge, Markshall Estate, Warley Place, Cressing Temple Barns, and the Gibberd Garden.
Jane will be running Tour & Draw adult workshops in the gardens of Audley End, Saffron Walden on Friday 7th July and at Holme Pierrepont Hall, Nottingham on Saturday 15th July. For details and tickets click here and here.
