Explores the 'lost kingdoms' with brush, ink and colour. A breathtakingly beautiful quest. In the age of mechanical reproduction, many fail to appreciate intricate drawings made by hand, hands having become mere obsolete instruments these days, compared to the fast precision of the digital camera. Christian Peltenburg-Brechneff's drawings capture what the camera can never capture: the spirit of the places he has rendered. Brechneff takes on the challenge of exploring and translating the architectural and spiritual wonders of the 'lost' kingdoms of the Himalayas with brush and ink and colour washes: Laddakh, Nepal, Sikkim, Bhutan, India, Burma, Cambodia and Laos. Brought to life through imaginative investment, Brechneff's subjects become more mysterious, and preciously exciting than ever. They sparkle with subjective life and become rapturously alive in a way that a photograph could never be. The ancient architecture of India - many old palaces and temples - and ageless mountains are already inspired creations, with archetypal import, emphasising that Brechneffs's journey to them is a spiritual journey. The intricate drawings form a visual diary of his travels. Each drawing is dated, and the place depicted named, indicating that the drawing is a documentary as well as personal journal. Peltenburg-Brechneff decodes and maps India's architecture and mountains with the hope of grasping the secret of their creative dynamic, rather than only preserving their dramatic appearance for posterity. Homage is a breathtakingly beautiful spiritual quest.

Over the past three decades, artist Christian Peltenburg-Brechneff has travelled around the world to visit some of the most glorious private gardens to paint en plein air. He has created a luscious visual record of 28 of them in this charming gift-sized book of watercolours and gouaches. With contacts among the international elite, the author has gained permission to enter some of the most exquisite and heretofore unrecorded gardens from Sri Lanka to Italy. With introductory texts by the distinguished art critic Donald Kuspit and the ever-influential interior architecture and garden designer Bunny Williams, Into the Garden chronicles this long-term pilgrimage of a visionary painter, opening the exquisite private gardens to the public for the very first time.