Public Parks, Private Gardens by Colta Ives

Everything started before the arrival of French Revolution when there was still peace, when there was still the conception of the discovery of harmony and beauty also in a garden or park thanks also at the arrival of plants and flowers directly from the new world.

Poetic, dreaming this catalog Public Parks, Private Gardens by Colta Ives published by The Metropolitan Museum of New York and distributed by Yale University Press gives voice at another characteristic of Paris and in general France: parks and gardens and if you are in New York City from March 12 2018 to July 29th 2018 don't miss this wonderful, researched appointment and art exhibit.

Since King Louis XVI and his wife Marie Antoinette gardens have always been researched and respected because in grade to donate more beauty, grace at the various estates. 

French wealthy people have always been passionate of gardens, and if at first there was a french garden attitude, during the XVIII century people started to appreciate english garden as well.
French Revolution brought a  lot of poverty, abandoned houses and so gardens.

Only when situation returned to be back at a certain stability and normality people tried to return to their old houses or to buy that abandoned houses elaborating their gardens with new plants, flowers, although of course these ones were more modest gardens if compared to the ones of the past.

The various Emperors as you will read left a great mark because they adored green places.

The beauty of a garden? It is relaxation, a moment of escapism where it is possible to reestablish an harmonic contact with nature, flowers, plants.

More than other ones painters understood not just the poeticity of a beautiful countryside, but also the immense possibility that gardens, parks, with their vivacity of colors, their beauty, would have meant in term of painting.

A lot of painters from Van Gogh, Cezanne, Monet, Manet, Degas, Delacroix, and many other Impressionists ones choosed the outside green and flowery world for giving and reporting a strong and serene representation of french reality becoming at the same time avid passionate of the art of gardening, as you will read thanks to an accurate life-story of these painters as well and not just of their artistic creations.

These painters loved to paint people while they were sat in parks, creating portraits in gardens,  focusing their attention on the so-called floral still-life genre, flowers in vase still alive and in general with, close to them, some fruits, or bread, biscuits for reporting an idea of a researched  casualty we can call it donating at the same time grace and presenting a precious, gentle aspect at a corner of a house.

This one is not just a book of art, but it is also a historical book so if you love France and you want to discover more, it's for you.
Enjoy the beauty and relaxation that this catalog brings with it thanks to the creations of immortal, genial painters and if you are in NYC don't miss this appointment!


I thank Yale Press for the physical copy of this catalog.

Anna Maria Polidori