Resumen de Garden ornament: Five hundred years of history and practice and Roddy Llewellyn' elegance and eccentricity: The ornamental and architectural features of historic British gardens
Robert Williams
A marvellously well-illustrated anthology of the array of devices used over the centuries to form or augment the West's finest gardens, Garden Ornament is badly let down by its weak text. Following his rather cursory "Historical Introduction" to the subject, George Plumptre offers a lengthy assessment (120 pages) of "Ornament and its Application" in Italy, Germany, France, Britain and elsewhere from the Renaissance down to modern times. To explain the forms and uses of vases, terraces, pergolas, balustrades, fountains, pavilions, statues and so forth across a continent and over a period of half a millenium should involve some coverage at least of the various crucial differences in taste that existed at anyone time; the frequent adjustments in cultural consumption and expectation forced by economic and aesthetic changes over the centuries are also important. In Garden Ornament, however, there is very little on any ofthis. Bereft of sharp critical inquiry, Plurnptre's assessment amounts only to a superficial overview of exquisite gardens seemingly made outside of real historical time.
