The four essays that make up this book take as their subject gardens of the Middle Ages and Renaissance whose traces are still visible, in varying degrees, at sites in Italy and France: Palermo and Rome, the Vaucluse and Hesdin. Traces only, as these gardens have long since been emptied of the life whose insistent motion gave them shape and in the intervening years have been transformed in such a way as to entangle and obscure significant moments of their past. Yet these moments were also refracted in other media - images and texts - that may be used to bring the past into focus again in the landscape itself. The following book attempts precisely this. Its modus operandi is an experiment, crossing the constitutive acts of the discipline of archaeology - excavation and reconstruction - with the protocols of the history of art, as it will involve, in a continuous circuit, both the identification and the interpretation of salient witnesses of the past. This experiment may derive from archaeology and the history of art, but its subject belongs to the field of landscape studies, which has truly burgeoned in recent years under the auspices of a provisional and yet ever-widening constituency of disciplines and initiatives, including garden history, cultural geography and environmental science, as well as anthropology and the histories of art and architecture, literature, material culture and performance. As landscape has become an increasingly independent field of inquiry, however, it has tended to take on the character of an autonomous form like that of the arts, whose methods of theory and criticism have become ensconced in the academy. This book will take a differnt path. The landscape it seeks to narrate, in four discrete episodes, stands not alone, as an independent and integral creation, but as an installation within a more enduring environment in much the same way that temporary "ambient architecture" - the architecture of the stage set, the showroom and the festival - stands within the framework of building and city. - from the Author's Prologue. 238 pages. Acknowledgments, prologue, notes, bibliography and index. 78 color and black & white illustrations. Art history, aesthetics, cultural studies, landscape studies.

Japanese Gardens - Revealed and Explained is comprehensive and thorough in its coverage of the subject of Japanese gardens and provides the reader with a window into the history, meaning and eye catching beauty of these unique creations. All aspects of Japanese gardens and gardening are covered from design to ingredients with coverage of subjects such as pruning techniques as well as numerous suggestions of what to plant in a Japanese garden courtesy of Master gardener L.H. Bailey. Discover Zen gardens (sometimes known as Japanese Rock gardens) and the deliberate ease of their appearance on the eye, as well as meaning and design. This book is suitable for beginners right the way through to the more experienced enthusiasts of Japanese gardens. Lovingly put together by the author and editor Russ Chard - a Japanese garden enthusiast and writer for over 10 years. This book is 70 pages of pure Japanese garden information. The subject is complicated but Japanese gardens - Revealed and Explained is in plain English, simplified for ease of learning. Anyone with ambitions to create and build a Japanese garden or Zen garden will find this book a very useful companion to realizing their dreams and plans .

If you have ever wondered 'What is a Zen garden?' then this 50 page new publication for 2013 will tell you. Zen gardens are beautiful Japanese gardens steeped in history, religious meaning and a visual simplicity. There are many styles and many ingredients, Stones, Rocks, Moss, Sand, Gravel, Plants and Shrubs, Lanterns and Ornaments. Japanese Zen gardens is a book that introduces the reader to the subject and presents the options available for anyone wishing to build their own garden space at home - however large or small. Zen gardens are becoming more and more popular around the world and building one is not as difficult as you may think. With a little knowledge and following our step by step instructions with pictures you will discover how straight forward it is to build a Zen garden in your yard or garden. Japanese Zen gardens are serene havens of tranquil beauty and the perfect antidote to a stressful world. The author Russ Chard has written and published Japanese garden books, articles and videos for the past 10 years.