foreword simone hoog (1 resultados)

Landscape quarto; hardcover, with gilt spine titles and blind-stamped upper board titles; 144pp., with many monochrome illustrations. Mild wear; somewhat rolled; text block top edge spotted; some spotting to the endpapers. Dustwrapper mildly rubbed and edgeworn; now professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. Very good. Postage quoted is for a standard format octavo book. Final charges may vary depending on size and weight. The extraordinary achievements of French landscape design in the seventeenth century have yet to be surpassed; this is due in large part to Andre Le Notre, 'the greatest landscape architect the world has ever seen' writes Vincent Scully in the introduction. As director of gardening under Louis XIV, Le Notre was responsible for giving France a new physical and symbolic structure, forming her gardens as images of a new nation at continental scale. From the theatricality of Vaux-le-Vicomte to the quiet charm of Maintenon, his designs - many of them still intact today - are the enduring legacey of the Grand Siecle. Photographer Jeannie Baubion-Mackler has studied the gardens of Le Notre and approaches her work with the same attention to scale and balance as the great 'jardiniste' himself. The images are a splendid homage to his vision and the precepts of the Age of Reason.