Dancing with Time: The Garden as Art (Cultural Interactions: Studies in the Relationship between the Arts)

Description

Gardens provoke thought and engagement in ways that are often overlooked. This book shines new light on long-held assumptions about gardens and proposes novel ways in which we might reconsider them. The author challenges traditional views of how we experience gardens, how we might think of gardens as works of art, and how the everyday materials of gardens – plants, light, water, earth – may become artful. The author provides a detailed analysis of Tupare, a garden in New Zealand, and uses it as source material for his analysis of the philosophical issues art gardens raise. His new account of gardens highlights the polymodal, multi-sensual, and improvisatory character of the garden experience, it offers an ontological comparison between gardens and humans and other animals, and it explains how identical plants, and arrangements of plants, may be mundane when encountered beyond the garden but artful, meaningful, and aesthetically valuable when experienced within it. Cover Contents List of Illustrations Preface Acknowledgements Introduction A New Account of Gardens Some Key Terms Outline Part I: Setting the Scene Chapter 1: “But Is It Art?”: Case Study of a New Zealand Garden Tupare Some Consequences for Philosophical Aesthetics Part II: The Territory: A Survey Chapter 2: Changing Views: Philosophical Aesthetics (1700–2017) Aesthetics of Nature Aesthetics of the Human Environment and the Everyday Aesthetics of Art Gardens, and Conceptions of Art Chapter 3: Changing Places: Gardens and Philosophical Aesthetics (1700–2017) A Changed Status Changes in Philosophical Aesthetics Changes in Society Changes in Garden Experiences and Fashions A Revived Status Part III: The Lie of the Land: A Critique Chapter 4: Up the Garden Path: Some Recent Writing Gardens and Meaning Gardens and the Definition of Art Chapter 5: Enjoying Time(s) in the Garden Time and Temporality in Philosophical Aesthetics Conditions – Group One Conditions – Group Two Time and Temporality in Gardens How Gardens Change Maturation Maintenance Biological Changes Cyclical Change Occasional Changes Planned Changes Chapter 6: What Sort of Artwork Are Gardens? Gardens Are Physical Objects Gardens Are Actions Action Type Hypothesis Instance Multiplicity Hypothesis Gardens Depend on Physical Objects Part IV: Breaking New Ground Chapter 7: A Philosophical Detour: Definitions, Theories, and Ontologies Definitions and Theories Ontologies Definitions, Theories, Ontologies, and Gardens Chapter 8: A New View of the Garden Introduction Ontology Gardens Are Not Multiple Gardens Are Singular Experience Gardens’ Materials Bibliography Index