Nils Büttner

An original, splendidly illustrated history of gardens as seen through the eyes of painters by the highly acclaimed author of Landscape Painting: A History. "Nils Buttner has produced a masterful survey of the depiction of sculptured landscapes in Western painting. One especially noteworthy feature of this wonderfully illustrated book is that the author brings this history up to the present. Yes, there is life after Impressionism." -- BarnesAndNoble.com "Buttner presents uncommon reproductions and sustains authoritative and engrossing commentary in an exquisite and illuminating book for art and garden lovers." -- Booklist, STARRED REVIEW Buttners text strikes at the heart of the human fascination with green oases and how the philosophy underpinning that fascination has changed in tandem with Western civilizations evolving relationship with the earth.... The History of Gardens in Painting remains a valuable compendium of how artists have lost themselves in gardens over time in the never-ending pursuit of paradise. -- Art Blog by Bob The creation of gardens was among the first achievements of early civilizations, and garden design was already highly developed in antiquity. Pictures of gardens are a reflection of the social, historical, and aesthetic context in which gardens were conceived. The focus of this captivating book is not the gardens themselves or the different concepts of the garden, but rather the representation of gardens in paintings. The author examines why artists paint gardens by covering the varied and lively 2,000-year history of the garden picture using 180 garden masterpieces as examples. The text begins with a look at ancient Rome, when paintings of gardens, as found in villas in Pompeii, were already valued as works of art. The wide-ranging coverage also includes pictures of charming medieval gardens in books of hours; Botticellis masterwork La Primavera, set in a grove of orange trees; views of well-known historic gardens, such as those at Versailles; painters gardens, as for example, Monets Giverny; and modern gardens depicted by Frida Kahlo, Andy Warhol, and David Hockney, among others. For collectors of art history books and garden books, this l

El Bosco ya era famoso en su tiempo por sus pinturas y creaciones fantásticas. Hoy en día se ha convertido en sinónimo de imágenes fantasmagóricas. Y a la hora de interpretar sus enigmáticas pinturas algunos remiten al simbolismo de la alquimia o sugieren la pertenencia a cultos paganos secretos. Otros tratan de entender sus mundos visuales a traves de explicaciones exotericas mientras que algunos otros intentan decodificarlos a traves de metodos de psicologia y de psicoanalisis.La vida y el trabajo de El Bosco estan excepcionalmente bien documentadas. En este libro, Nils Buttner recorre la trayectoria de un pintor que trabajo para los circulos mas altos de nobles y cortesanos y analiza su obra en el contexto de la cultura contemporanea. Este trabajo nuevo y concienzudo se publica en el quinto centenario de la muerte de El Bosco.