PAYSAGES. L’HÉRITAGE DE LE NÔTRE LANDSCAPES, THE HERITAGE OF LE NÔTRE Collective work Edited by Michel Audouy and Chiara Santini
W 19.6 × 25.5 cm 336 pages 140 color illustrations softback coedition ensp/actes sud april 2021 retail price: 42 €
The landscaper and designer, Michel Audouy lectures at the École nationale supérieure de paysages in Versailles and is the general secretary of the French Landscape Federation (ffp) and the Horticulture and Landscape Professions association (Val’hor) The historian, archivistpaleographer Chiara Santini lectures the history of gardens and landscapes at the École nationale supérieure de paysages in Versailles and is the administrator of Villa d’Este and Hadrian’s Villa in Tivoli.
hat we understand of historic French gardens today is often the contrary of what André Le Nôtre (1613-1700) brought to landscapes and the art of gardens. The approach to landscape of this exceptional designer cannot be reduced to straight-lined flowerbeds or monotonous perspectives, but is more focused on the organization of whole territories and the creation of networks of different spatial entities within estates. While Le Nôtre was a landscape artist, he was also in so many ways an urban planner. To talk of Le Nôtre today as the “father” of contemporary landscapism could be construed as an anachronism, or as appropriation based on the benefit of hindsight. In his lifetime, Louis XIV’s garden-maker was never referred to as a “landscapist”, the word at the time referred to “landscape painters”. It was not until the 19th century that the word became attached with the designers of parks and gardens; only in the 20th century did the word enter dictionaries and common parlance.
Le Nôtre is an icon in the history of French landscaping in an age when the landscapists’ art was in its infancy. He was a creator of principles of composition so modern that they could be considered “universal”.
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There is indeed something contemporary in Le Nôtre’s work, and there are echoes of his approach in the work of many landscapists, especially in the way he was able to capture the spirit of a place by reconfiguring it across scales, from the garden to the territory and from the city to the countryside. This work presents contributions from various specialists – landscapists, architects, researchers, artists, etc. – who ask questions of the emblematic designer’s approach and heritage from the perspectives of ecology, regional planning, and our relationship to history and the natural world. The designer of Versailles’ gardens becomes a pretext and inspiration for a new vision of the world.
