Clare A.P. Willsdon

In her introduction Claire Willsdon, after a brief survey of the artists and some of the gardens they painted, looks at the key characteristics of gardens as an Impressionist theme, and the ideas and events which make gardens a significant feature of Impressionist art. She then proceeds to view her subject by looking at various aspects including flowers, horticulture, private gardens, the social garden, the working garden and concludes by looking at the spread of Impressionist garden painting outside France to Britain, Germany, North America and Japan.

This is a substantial and lavish book, well researched using contemporary gardening journals and literature in addition to the artists’ notes and letters. The text is as much about gardens and gardening as it is about the art they inspired. There are 261 illustrations of which 135 are in full colour. While some of the black and white illustrations are reproductions of black and white originals and period photographs, they also include quite a number of the paintings. The reproductions vary in size from thumbnails to full page, and run with the text throughout; usually the images appear within a few pages of the text which refers to them. The text is supported with extensive notes, and the book also includes a bibliography and a list of illustrations in addition to an index.

I do have a few gripes about the book. It is a pity that all the paintings are not reproduced in colour, there may be good reasons for some note being so, such as a painting which is now lost, but for others I cannot image it an impossible task to find a colour picture. I feel too that the chosen typeface is ill suited, a modern serif it does not read easily on the glossy paper. As is often the case with themed books on art one cannot help feeling that the inclusion of some pictures is rather contrived, the garden element being minimal at best.

The author, Claire Willsdon took her doctorate at Cambridge, and is senior lecturer in History of Art at the University of Glasgow. She is a specialist in 19th and early 20th century art and culture.… (mehr)