C. C. L. Hirschfeld's concept of the garden in the German Enlightenment

• Autores: Linda Parshall
• Localización: Studies in the history of gardens and designed landscape, ISSN 1460-1176, Vol. 13, Nº 3, 1993, págs. 125-171
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • In his own day and for more than a generation after, Christian Cay Lorenz Hirschfeld (1742-1792) was recognized in Continental Europe as an authority, if not the authority, on gardens-their history, their art, their meaning. Acclaimed as "father of landscape garden art", his writings were influential not just in Germany but also in France, Hungary, Italy, The Netherlands, Scandinavia and Russia, especially his five-volume Theorie der Gartenkunst (hereafter Theorie) which appeared simultaneously in German and French between 1779 and 1785. The Theorie was by far the most comprehensive of his publications but not the only source of his renown. Of his other dozen book-length studies, many appeared in more than one edition, sections were excerpted and anthologized, and six were quickly translated into Dutch. He was known to experts and amateurs alike, and soon became a great favorite of an increasingly voracious reading public. Late eighteenth-century ladies pored over his works with enthusiasm, and garden connoisseurs wrote in flattering terms to share their insights; his prose was held up as a standard to be emulated by aspiring writers. Well-informed gardeners carried copies of the Theorie in their pockets (the one-volume version of 1775, unless their pockets were unusually large!). Between 1767 and 1799 there was as many as fifty reviews and printed discussions of his numerous publications. Hirschfeld was admired both for his persuasive language and his scholarly erudition. His exemplary evocations of nature were favorably compared with those by noted poets of the day; his style was judged to be intoxicating, overflowing with the magic and power of nature itself. Hirschfeld's reputation was such that in 1796 Goethe could ironically tease a young woman for preferring the work of Hirschfeld, "Anatomicker der Natur" ("Nature's Anatomist"), to his own letters.