On Foreign Soil: American Gardeners Abroad
The very act of making a personal garden implies that the gardener feels at home, and creating a garden in a foreign country requires a special character. This handsomely illustrated volume features gardens by fascinating Americans, from Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson to Edith Wharton and Gore Vidal, who have planted their roots in England, France, and Italy since the earliest days of our nation. \ \ In a readable text filled with insights into expatriate life, art historian May...
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An art historian specializing in American art, who also writes about gardening, celebrates still-visited gardens developed by US expatriates living in England, France, and Italy. In the context of America's perennially ambivalent relationship with Europe, Hill discusses these diverse gardens and features them in art and photo images. From Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, who had gardens in France, to a former Washington, DC journalist now gardening in rural England, she discusses their inspirations. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR Library Journal Hill, an art historian specializing in American painting and sculpture and the author of award-winning gardening books like Grandmother's Garden, here describes gardens created by expatriate Americans in England, France, and Italy from the 18th century to the present. A selection of period prints, photographs, and paintings is combined with contemporaneous letters and descriptions to portray these gardens vividly. While Hill suggests that they are idiosyncratic in the way that the Americans use annuals abundantly and often request seeds of favorite plants from home, especially sweet corn, she never fully explains how the gardens differ from those created in the same place at the same time by natives. This happens because most of the gardens profiled have vanished, and there is not much evidence to go on. As a result, the text largely reads like a series of biographical sketches, often describing which American millionaire's daughter married which European nobleman to provide the money to restore or create a garden-entertaining but hardly new history. It's a shame because when the evidence does allow Hill to go into greater depth, she produces a compelling portrait of the garden and its creator. Recommended only for large gardening collections.-Daniel Starr, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.
\ Library JournalHill, an art historian specializing in American painting and sculpture and the author of award-winning gardening books like Grandmother's Garden, here describes gardens created by expatriate Americans in England, France, and Italy from the 18th century to the present. A selection of period prints, photographs, and paintings is combined with contemporaneous letters and descriptions to portray these gardens vividly. While Hill suggests that they are idiosyncratic in the way that the Americans use annuals abundantly and often request seeds of favorite plants from home, especially sweet corn, she never fully explains how the gardens differ from those created in the same place at the same time by natives. This happens because most of the gardens profiled have vanished, and there is not much evidence to go on. As a result, the text largely reads like a series of biographical sketches, often describing which American millionaire's daughter married which European nobleman to provide the money to restore or create a garden-entertaining but hardly new history. It's a shame because when the evidence does allow Hill to go into greater depth, she produces a compelling portrait of the garden and its creator. Recommended only for large gardening collections.-Daniel Starr, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.\ \
