Gardens and Grottos: Fashions and landscapes in 18th-century Britain Emma Major
Event details
Join Emma Major of the University of York’s Department of English and Related Literature as she discusses some key examples of 18th-century gardening trends, including the fashion for grottoes and Chinese gardens.
The 18th century saw the development of a distinctive national gardening aesthetic that was intimately bound up with national identity. Formal gardens, with their parterres and topiary, so fashionable here in the past, were increasingly identified with French and Dutch gardening, and a supposedly more natural style of garden design took their place.
The lines and symmetry that dictated the gardens at Versailles were seen as a reflection of the absolute monarchy of the Sun King Louis XIV; Britain liked to see itself as a country of liberty, one which was better expressed through gardens that looked less regulated and which were guided by a more natural aesthetic, one which followed the serpentine line of beauty.
Although writers such as Alexander Pope encouraged his readers to respect the genius loci, the landscape gardens of the period were just as rigorously controlled as their formal counterparts. Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown gained his name through his ability to see the possibilities offered by an estate: achieving these capabilities often involved the reshaping of the landscape though the removal of trees, redirection of streams, and even the removal of entire villages to achieve the correctly natural views from the house.
Come along and learn more about the fashions and landscapes of 18th-century Britain, including a brief examination of the gardens at our own Heslington Hall on the University of York campus.
‘Gardens and Grottos: Fashions and landscapes in 18th-century Britain’ is one of a number of events taking place as part of a special edition of YorkTalks. Celebrating University of York’s research at its best, we invite you to explore a dynamic landscape of curated talks, live performances and hands-on activities staged in the historic Heslington Hall and its grounds on the theme Heritage Reframed.
Image credit: DS Pugh/Wikimedia Commons
About the speaker
Dr Emma Major is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of English and Related Literature and a member of the Centre for Eighteenth-Century Studies at the University of York. She has research interests in the period 1660 to 1900 and loves gardening.
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