The English Landscape Garden: Dreaming of Arcadia

The 18th-century English landscape garden offers a transcendent vision of Arcadia, a world of rich escapism peopled by gods and goddesses, young lovers and dairymaids, poets, and philosophers. This unique book celebrates, illustrates, and elucidates what is arguably the greatest artform Britain has.

The gardens covered include:

• Studley Royal (Yorkshire), a dreamy valley garden which culminates with a view down and across the ruins of a Cistercian abbey
• Stowe (Buckinghamshire), the great politically motivated garden of its day, boasting the ensemble masterpiece that is William Kent's Elysian Fields
• Chiswick House (London), Lord Burlington's experiment in neoclassical architecture
• Petworth (Sussex) - of 'Capability' Brown, who eschewed the symbolism of earlier generations, but created instead his own powerful vision of pastoral Arcadia
• Hawkstone Park (Shropshire), designed to elicit a thrill of fear in visitors as they traverse rocky precipices and encounter live hermits

This is a sumptuous, beautifully photographed volume that celebrates the quintessentially British landscape garden. It's a book to dive into--feast on the photographs while the text transports you into an idyllic dream realm.