Austere Gardens

Download or Read eBook Austere Gardens PDF written by Marc Treib and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle.
Austere Gardens
Author :
Publisher :
Total Pages : 0
Release :
ISBN-10 : 1935935380
ISBN-13 : 9781935935384
Rating : 4/5 (80 Downloads)

Book Synopsis Austere Gardens by : Marc Treib

Book excerpt: Austere Gardens suggests another way to look at the landscape, the garden, and perhaps the entire world around us. It suggests that being open to other ways of observing and sensing can yield new insights and rewards, and that interest is found in places unassuming and overlooked as well as those complex and assertive. Perceiving is only one half the story, however. Realizing places using simple acts and reduced means is the other half. The history of garden-making reveals continued attempts to create an Eden, to surpass our given environment in abundance and delight, and by selected instruments transcend the constraints of site, topography, and climate. The alternative to this garden of inclusion lies in the landscapes of reduction and compression, for example the dry gardens of Japan. These might be termed austere gardens. The word "austere," as used in this essay, does not imply asceticism, but merely modesty and restraint. Austere landscapes may first appear devoid of interest if noticed at all. To those who do not look beyond their surfaces, these sites, and the world outside them, usually appear plain and uninteresting, or even lacking of the very properties by which we define a garden. But there are sensual, aesthetic, and even philosophical, pleasures to be gained from these seemingly dull fields should we attempt to appreciate them. These qualities, normally associated with abundance and complexity, may be found in a different way, and at a different level, in austere terrain. Although the subject of the small book is gardens, or more broadly taken, landscapes that may be read as gardens, many of the examples are nonetheless drawn from art and architecture, from history as well as contemporary times. The images that accompany the text tell their own stories, illustrating what can be accomplished using frugal means or through basic acts like digging, piling, planting, cutting, and clearing. In an era where resources appear to be dwindling and populations growing, attitudes that value simplicity and reduction also gain a moral dimension.


Austere Gardens Related Books

Austere Gardens
Language: en
Pages: 0
Authors: Marc Treib
Categories: Architecture
Type: BOOK - Published: 2016 - Publisher:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Austere Gardens suggests another way to look at the landscape, the garden, and perhaps the entire world around us. It suggests that being open to other ways of
Kyoto Gardens
Language: en
Pages: 156
Authors: Judith Clancy
Categories: Gardening
Type: BOOK - Published: 2015-03-10 - Publisher: Tuttle Publishing

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

"Bring the art and beauty of Japan to your garden with inspiration from Kyoto Gardens." —HGTV Gardens Featuring beautiful Japanese garden photography and insi
The Poetics and Politics of Gardening in Hard Times
Language: en
Pages: 154
Authors: Naomi Milthorpe
Categories: Literary Criticism
Type: BOOK - Published: 2019-09-25 - Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

How do poets, writers and cultural critics contend with and represent the garden or their own gardening as they are changed by austerity? Gardening under auster
The Garden as an Art
Language: en
Pages: 252
Authors: Mara Miller
Categories: Gardening
Type: BOOK - Published: 1993-01-01 - Publisher: SUNY Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

In this book Miller challenges contemporary aesthetic theory to include gardens in an expanded definition of art. She provides a radical critique of three centr
Old-fashioned Gardening
Language: en
Pages: 362
Authors: Grace Tabor
Categories: Gardening
Type: BOOK - Published: 1913 - Publisher:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK