Nature Over Again

The Garden Art of Ian Hamilton Finlay

John Dixon Hunt

• Publisher: Reaktion Books
• Year: 2009
• Print ISBN:
  9781861893932
• eBook ISBN:
  9781861896261
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Architecture General

Though Ian Hamilton Finlay’s (1925-2006) work Little Sparta is, according to Sir Roy Strong, 'the most important garden made in Britain since 1945’, his influence - and work - is found worldwide. Nature Over Again reveals the story behind the majority of Finlay’s renowned garden installations, and is the first study to examine his garden designs and 'interventions’ in a consequential way.

An accomplished Scottish poet, writer, artist and gardener, Finlay infused his garden designs with a distinct aesthetic philosophy and poetic sensibility. John Dixon Hunt situates his analysis of Finlay's gardens in the context of that broader philosophy and poetic work, drawing on Finlay’s books, prints and other written reflections about the art and practice of garden design. From the Max Planck Institute in Stuttgart to the Serpentine Gallery in London to the University of California at San Diego campus, the book documents how Finlay built an oeuvre of international renown, and ultimately argues that Finlay’s innovations are best understood in the context of the long tradition of European gardens.

Copiously illustrated, Nature Over Again brings the work of this distinguished Modernist to vivid life, making it an essential read for horticulturists, landscape designers and historians alike.

Table of contents

• Nature Over Again Cover
• Imprint page
• Contents
• Preamble
• 1 Words of a dead poet . . .
• 2 Garden matters: ‘a tangible image . . . ’
• 3 From page to garden
• 4 Detached sentences
• 5 Fragments, excerpts & incompletions
• 6 Inscriptions
• 7 ‘Spaces full of doubt’
• 8 ‘ . . . the hideous process of secularization’
• 9 Mare nostrum
• 10 Et in Arcadia Ego
• 11 [Neo-]classical landscapes
• 12 Revolutions
• 13 Errata, or recovered in translation
• 14 ‘Mower is Less’
• 15 A solid place
• 16 Gardens matter
• Appendix
• References
• Acknowledgements
• Photo Acknowledgements