| The Château de Villandry was built in 1532, at the end of the Loire Valley’s great period of artistic and architectural expression. Restored at the beginning of the twentieth century by Joachim Carvallo, the gardens surrounding the château are a unique example of a painstaking and documented restoration of an ornamental French-style garden of the Renaissance. In sixteenth-century Europe, garden design belonged to the Fine Arts. Inspired by both the monasteries’ tradition of enclosed vegetable gardens and the Italians’ love of clipped thickets, Villandry is a perfect illustration of the poet Jacques Delille’s definition: «To my eyes a garden is a vast painting.» Set out in symmetrical patterns, mixing architecture with domestic vegetation, the plants here are like decorative accessories. Every era stages its conception of nature. In the age of Louis XIV, it was embroidered flower beds and exotic plants placed in orangeries. In the Age of Enlightenment, it was factories and romantic ruins. Today, wild nature is taking center stage with the «nomadic garden.»
Visit the YAB Gallery for books and signed prints |
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