Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

The Morgan Library & Museum has assembled an impressive array of trend-setting texts and outstanding works of art that reveal the origins and impact of the stylistic innovations of the Romantic Garden, in a broad cultural context, roughly from 1700 to 1900. This book provides a compelling overview of these groundbreaking ideas and shows how they were implemented in private estates and public parks in England, France, Germany, and America.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

This large-format, deluxe volume accompanies a recent exhibition at the Morgan Library & Museum in New York City. Cocurator Rogers contributes a feature essay introducing Romanticism as it developed in Europe and America during the 18th and 19th centuries and further discusses the movement's influence on landscape design. Garden planners attempted to capture the power and beauty of nature, while imparting moral lessons or producing sensual pleasure. This ethos has informed many public parks, gardens, and cemeteries. The Morgan exhibit includes diverse documents and visual art, reproduced here in color, with descriptions by Elizabeth Eustis (Boston Architectural Coll.) and John Bidwell (Astor Curator of Printed Books and Bindings, Morgan Library). An example is a lithograph of Balcony Bridge in Central Park, designed by architect Calvert Vaux around 1860. VERDICT This valuable work on the history of landscape design in Western culture will be of most interest to landscape architects, art historians, and students.-David R. Conn, Surrey P.L., B.C. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

CHOICE Review

This handsome catalogue accompanied a 2010 exhibition at the J. P. Morgan Library, dedicated to the origins and development of the Romantic garden as documented by the library's rich holdings. Rogers (Foundation for Landscape Studies), with assistance from Eustis (Boston Architectural College) and Bidwell (the Morgan), introduces readers to the defining features of Romanticism (an emotional, spontaneous reaction to nature, informality, the rejection of reason and rules, etc.), its connection to landscape, and the major theorists, poets, artists, and garden designers of the movement from 1700 to 1900. While there is little new in Rogers's exposition, it is an elegant, extensive summary of this most elusive of subjects. Scholarly entries for the cited works follow, each illustrated and arranged according to country (Britain, Germany, France, and the US). Rogers is alert to the complex dynamic between artists/poets who are able to give free vent to their imagination, and the garden designer who must conform to the limitations of a given site. The volume features some remarkable documents, among which is a garden design made by William Wordsworth. The discussion of the American contribution is especially welcome. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-level undergraduates through researchers/faculty. L. R. Matteson formerly, University of Southern California