HPSC20002 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: English Landscape Garden, Ecological Crisis, Lynn Townsend White Jr.
24 May 2018
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DAY 4: CIVILISING NATURE: GARDENS
ENGLIGHTENMENT AND THE GARDENS
• Civilisations in the ancient world which bear a central importance to the modern world as we know it
Central Enlightenment Ideas
• Everything in the world can be understood through rational thought - rejection of mysticism
• Rational thought enables humans to control their surroundings - idea of the mastery of nature
• Rational thought and advancement of knowledge improves morality of human beings - central role of education
• Strong belief nature is structured in an almost perfect rational order
• Task of science:
o Discovering the rational order of nature
o Improving society to make new knowledge available to people - link to education
• Search for order, given the political, religious and historical context
• Search for certainty: rational order needs to rest on knowledge that is absolutely certain
o Seen in The Garden of Versailles
• Most famous exemplar of French garden in the modern era
• Designed on geometric principles
English Landscape Garden
• Emerged in 18th C, against the geometric gardens produced in France
• Romantic elements, rolling hills and lawns
• Idealised vision of nature, inspired in part by French landscape painters - associated with the Arcadian visions of
nature
Botanical Gardens
• History closely linked to history of Botany
• Early: associated with medicinal gardens, and universities - dedicated to academic studies
• Began to house exotic species from the voyages of discovery
o Botanists began to classify and study new species of plants
Jardin des Plantes
• Founded in 1626 - Kings Royal Garden
• Became a place of research and museum
Buffon
• French naturalist, director of the Garden, wrote Hitoire Naturelle
• Linnaeus's major contemporary critic
o Rejected the artificiality of the sexual system
o Any classification arbitrary
Kew Gardens
• Founded 1759, serves as a model of botanical gardens
• 16th and 17th C. - globalisation and international trade used to promote botanical exploration and colonial powers
began to start botanical gardens in their colonies to see if plants with economic value could be planted in new
areas
History of Ecology
• Holy Roman Nature
o When Rome became Christian, nature took a new meaning
• Became what God had created
• Became linear and finite (not cyclical)
• Took on a moral dimensions - either sinful, or something for us to use
• Nature is subordinate and separate to God
• Nature as something that goes through processes, which leads to the way in which we view it today
• The White Thesis
o The Historic Roots of our Ecological Crisis - Lynn White 1967
• Eastern Church - God speaks to men through symbol
• Western Church - natural theology was becoming the effort to understand God's mind by discovering
how his creation operates
• Christianity established a dualism of man and nature, and insisted it is God's will that he exploit nature
for his own good
• Ecological crisis is the result of a change in the way we see nature and how we see it
o Criticisms (of the White thesis)
• Hard to generalise over medieval Christianity as there were many different views and traditions
• Arguable that the Christian worldview is responsible for exploitative technology and science
▪ Ignores the role of the rise of capitalism in the 14th C.
• Treats nature as passive - human institutions are influenced by ecological conditions
• Early modern period did see nature as there for human convenience and use
Document Summary
Englightenment and the gardens: civilisations in the ancient world which bear a central importance to the modern world as we know it. Everything in the world can be understood through rational thought - rejection of mysticism. Rational thought enables humans to control their surroundings - idea of the mastery of nature. Rational thought and advancement of knowledge improves morality of human beings - central role of education. Strong belief nature is structured in an almost perfect rational order. Task of science: discovering the rational order of nature. Improving society to make new knowledge available to people - link to education. Search for order, given the political, religious and historical context. Search for certainty: rational order needs to rest on knowledge that is absolutely certain. Seen in the garden of versailles: most famous exemplar of french garden in the modern era, designed on geometric principles. Emerged in 18th c, against the geometric gardens produced in france.
