Poodling by ACC Art Books

(preceding pages)

A POODLING POTPOURI: MICROPHONES, BALLS, & OTHER VEGETAL DEFORMATIONS. BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA.

02 (on the right) INGROWN POODLING: DENSITY AT THE BORDER OF TOPIARY—AND YET INDIVIDUALLY SHAPED. EL CERRITO, CALIFORNIA.

MARSHMALLOW CLUMPS. SCOTTSDALE, ARIZONA.

Poodling: On the Just Shaping of Shrubbery

Photos by the author (unless otherwise noted)

ORO EDITIONS, NOVATO, CALIFORNIA

Marc Treib

03 HEDGEROWS. CANTERBURY PLAIN, NEW ZEALAND.

CLASSIC PIN CUSHION —OR BALL—POODLING. PALM SPRINGS, CALIFORNIA.

It is well known

among landscape historians that in the ancient Roman world the gardener was known by the Latin title topiarius, a figure often depicted holding an ax rather than a trowel or a spade. The ax signified maintenance—and one might add, control—a triumph of human intervention over natural processes. But why reconfigure the branches of a tree or shrub? Why not just leave them to grow as directed by their genetics and responses to the environment? Horticultural practices such as grafting and pruning improve the health of the plant and increase its yield; but shaping serves other purposes as well. Densely planted rows of trees confront the force of the wind while rendering property lines visible. At smaller scale hedges perform similar duties. Like good fences, good hedges can make good neighbors. To improve their visual aspects, and at times to address civic propriety, domestic hedges are commonly sheared into a more ordered form, unlike hedgerows, which are usually left to grow without undue trimming.1 On New Zealand’s Canterbury Plain, however, hedgerows are clipped into neat volumes with the precision and pride normally associated with the English lawn [03]. These masses of vegetation, unlike most hedgerows, are transformed into colossal works of topiary art high and long. Whether at the smaller domestic scale, or with the greater dimensions demanded by terrain and climate, responses to functional constraints such as these may have been the origins of topiary as an artistic practice. First need, then art [04].

In the garden, however, other forces are operative. Once the shrub had been considered as a material for sculpting, it was only a small step before someone realized that a living hedge could be treated as an architectural feature such as a wall, or a freestanding shrub as material for a work of art. Considering the training and shearing of living vegetation as acts of artistic creation, the fantasy of those with shears took hold. Clouds have been read as animals; the surface of the moon interpreted as a human face or a rabbit; and stars of constellations imagined as human and animal figures. Why then could one not see in the shrub the possibilities for architectonic and figurative forms? Although decried by some as a perverse tic—as do certain nature purists—that perversity has driven invention as a source of novelty. At times sheared vegetation provokes a smile on the face of the

the weight of dead loads placed upon them. In extreme situations, snowfall collected upon the clumps of needles remaining after pruning can snap even large branches. Understanding the hazard, gardeners seasonally reinforce these branches with straw ropes suspended from a central pole. Like so many other traditional gardening techniques the installation of these winter supports is still used today, and in the garden of Kenroku-en in Kanazawa one finds the most beautiful examples of these seasonal structural reinforcements [34].

As in the West, pruning first served horticultural purposes. Tea plants (Camellia sinensis) are commonly grown in rows, whether on flat land or hillsides, in climates suitably cool and suitably moist. To yield a product more rich and flavorful, the leaves are plucked while still young, a practice that also stimulates continued new growth. The process of harvesting juvenile foliage has led to plants eternally constrained into almost Platonic forms. Their beauty lies not only in the individual shrub, but also collectively in rows that run the length of hillside terraces, or trace the contours of the terrain. Not only in Asia, but even on islands in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean [35].

Lore has it that early Japanese tea masters like Takeno Jō-ō (1502–55) and Sen-no-Rikyu (1522–1591) saw the aesthetic potential of using sheared shrubs in the tea garden—perhaps bringing with them thoughts of the beverage’s origin. Thereafter, plants were routinely shaped to enrich a garden’s composition and heighten its beauty. Once again, what had begun as a functional technique was adapted and used purely for its visual appeal. Over the years Japanese temple gardens came to combine noticeably clipped shrubs with those allowed to maintain their more natural guise. At the garden of Shōden-ji in northern Kyoto sheared azaleas serve as surrogates for the stones more commonly used in dry (karesansui) gardens [36]. Although essentially topiary in their unitary forms, being vegetal they stand apart from the white walls that enclose them and the naturalism found in the trees and other vegetation beyond the wall.

Shōden-ji embodies the Japanese aesthetic concept of shin-gyō-sō, which might be loosely translated as the mixture of formal, semiformal, and informal elements. The categorization of differing degree of formalities had its origins in calligraphy. Shin is the formal mode: possibly stiff, 34 KENROKU-EN. KANAZAWA, JAPAN, 17TH CENTURY+. IN WINTER, STRAW ROPES SUSPENDED FROM A CENTRAL POLE COUNTER THE WEIGHT OF THE SNOW ON BRANCHES WEAKENED BY PRUNING.

The Dog

The conversion of Canis lupus, the wolf, to Canis lupis familaris, the domesticated dog, is believed to have taken place between 27,000 and 40,000 years ago, a process that elevated its status from wilderness threat to domestic asset. From the moment of the species’ formation, until only a few centuries ago, the dog was regarded solely in terms of the work it could perform, especially for activities related to the hunt. Kept outdoors or housed in a barn or utility structure, the dog only very rarely set paw within the house. Over time, however, the relation between man’s/ woman’s/their best friend became more endearing, and dogs began to be considered in a new light. In England, dogs still served the hunt, of course, but now in a more gentrified manner. Despite this change in use, they were usually kept as a pack and excluded from entry into the home or manor. That began to change in the seventeenth century, when in the mind of its owner the service animal metamorphosed from a utility to an object of affection. Formerly exiled to the kennel or farmyard, the dog was now accepted as a beloved member of the household [45]. In France during the eighteenth-century this transformation of regard became more widespread and the dog became, in Kathleen Kete’s words, “the beast in the boudoir.”28

Now “blessed” with a privileged interior life, the dog underwent further degrees of domestication, among them more extensive behavior training, deodorizing, and continued grooming. Madame’s preference focused on small dogs, what today we might call lap dogs, who became a fashion accessory as well as fond friend. Accordingly, the breed and its breeding were continually brought up to date to reflect the current fashion. In time this care applied to the grooming of the animal as well, in particular the management of the dog’s hair through shearing. Earlier on, dogs had been clipped for functional purposes: to retard the accumulation of mud and spurs or to reduce the external measure of the head or body part for increased speed while in pursuit, or to allow greater access into some burrow or tree hollow. As in horticulture in general, and the propagation of tea in particular, what had first emerged as a practice to address functional needs became a practice solely for display, cooing, and other aesthetic and social purposes. Shearing and clipping were used to manage the coats of a number of breeds, but over the years severe hair management became associated with a single breed: the poodle.