8/8/2023 0 Comments Landscape architecture symbols![]() This was an aspect of what is called ‘renaissance paganism’. ![]() Other cloister garths (eg Certose di Pavia) have parterre designs – which are not Christian symbols.ĭuring the renaissance period, ‘graven images’ re-appeared in gardens. Some cloisters, like Salisbury, have had wholly inappropriate designs. The gardens of Lambeth Palace are sadly neglected. The Vatican has great gardens but they do not have Christian symbols. Christian monks became expert gardeners and cloister garths are widely interpreted as examples of sacred geometry – as symbols of God’s perfection. This was a blow to the classical tradition of garden design, though not to the practice of gardening. After Christianity was declared the official religion of the Roman Empire, by Theodosius I on 27 February 380, these statues came to be regarded as idols and graven images. Rome’s public places, and Roman gardens, had been rich in statues of pagan Gods. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.Ģ Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Then, when Christianity became the official faith of the Roman Empire, the injunctions against idolatry (eg in the First and Second Commandments) came to the fore:ġ. The etymology of steward is ‘most probably Old English stig a house or some part of a house’ (OED)īut what of Christianity and garden design? There is a Biblical injunction to grow food ‘ …and thou shalt eat the herb of the field In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.‘ But, as the magnificent words of the King James Bible testify, growing food was more of a duty a pleasure. A steward would have a duty to conserve the environment only if the lord issued such a command. ![]() A steward is ‘An official who controls the domestic affairs of a household, supervising the service of his master’s table, directing the domestics, and regulating household expenditure a major-domo’ (OED). I see this as an incomplete re-interpretation of the Bible, because a steward takes instructions from a lord. Aldo Leopold, who trained as a forester, argued that humanity should adopt a ‘land ethic’.Ĭhristian Ecologists have responded by interpreting ‘dominion’ as ‘stewardship’. Forests, for example, which were associated with paganism, need only be conserved if, as part of their ‘dominion’, humans make this choice in their own interest. McHarg thought it was a reason for Christians not identifying an ethical duty to conserve the environment, biodiversity or ‘wild nature’. Ian McHarg, the most influential landscape architect of the twentieth century, criticised the Book of Genisis for giving man dominion over our planet’s animials and plants ‘ And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.’ ( Genesis 1:26) McHarg, following Lynn White, saw this as a Biblical basis for not recognizing rights in non-human life. ![]() This Christian symbol, in the garden of a chuch in India, is pleasing - and startling: it highlights the LACK OF CHRISTIAN SYMBOLS in European gardens, be they sacred or secular. ![]()
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