Idea of the Garden

Catalog description

Gardens are as diverse as cultures, but the idea of the garden is common to various cultures through the ages and across continents. What do gardens tell us about the human condition? How do gardens relate to the individual and the idea of community? How do they reflect philosophical ideas? In which ways do the real and imagined interfere with each other? Is a garden a representation of nature or culture or both? How does a garden relate to spiritual needs and sensual experience (smell, sound, sight, tactile and kinesthetic bodily feeling)? How is the idea of the garden distinguished from but related to the notion of a natural landscape? We will look at Zen-gardens and rooftop gardens, monastic and palace gardens, sculpture and pleasure gardens, mythic gardens in various religious traditions. The course is conceived as neither a historical survey nor a typological compilation but chooses diverse examples and representations of gardens from various cultures and historical periods in order to explore the ways in which gardens reflect the human condition.