Wednesday, January 5, 2011

No Accident


Great gardens are no accident.  Objects and plants can do no more than their individual qualities suggest.  The way we arrange the objects and plants produces the overall effect.  A boulder, however powerful in itself, can lose its impact when it is unconsciously placed.   A well-placed pebble can out-perform it.
For each person’s unique artistic bent there is a corresponding place in garden design where those sharpened senses will shine.  Sometimes all it takes to make the leap from confusion to clarity is a straightforward guide to the language of a medium.
Composition, a word found in all art forms, is applicable in all its meanings when we design our gardens.  We humans are particularly sensitive to composition.  In any single day of our lives, the visual, verbal, musical, textural, composition of our surroundings jostles our emotions.  Our senses compose a multi-dimensional response.  Pleasure requires the support of all the senses. We are carried into the deepest dream of a garden when the garden is made with an understanding of the transporting qualities of composition. It then holds our awareness of place, nature, and purpose and returns it to our unconscious.


No comments:

Post a Comment