Annabelle at the Ariana – Oil on canvas, 28 x 44 inches, 2018

Plant gardens, rock gardens, flower gardens, vegetable gardens, ornamental gardens, whatever their type, gardens are defined as enclosed spaces. They may be isolated by a fence, a door, a hedge, flower beds, a wall, a staircase that provides access, any surrounding structure. Access is usually protected, reserved to a family, a community, a city, a fee-paying public, or when freely open, limited to specific hours.

Secret gardens, formal gardens, hanging gardens, and other parks are an invitation to stroll, relax, daydream, meditate, but also to meet, observe, study and discover. They are planned and designed to present nature as non-threatening, tamed, domesticated, transformed to become a landscape; they reflect their creators’s aesthetics.

Gardens combines the art of composition and juxtaposition. Architecture complements nature, allowing an interaction between soil, wood, stone, and iron. Simple or sophisticated, constructed  structures underline and enhance the vegetation conceived as an element of beauty.

These multiple aspects of parks and gardens are reflected in paintings executed mostly in the Loire Valley in France, and the Hudson Valley in New York State, but also in other places. Brought together these individual depictions highlight the importance of this rich heritage, essential for its aesthetic values, its educational and social functions, but also essential, vital, for our survival.

Autumn on the High Line, Oil on canvas, 26 x 61 inches, 2016