A new art exhibition reveals the scale and ambition of grand 17th-century gardens. By

Non Morris

The new Tate Britain show, British Baroque: Power and Illusion, is a dazzling reminder, in this age of Instagram, that image-making is a long-established craft. When Charles II was restored to the throne in 1660 after tumultuous years of exile, regicide and civil war, there began a dynamic campaign to re-establish the court as the glorious epicentre of the cultural life of the nation. This was the English take on the supremacy of majesty so powerfully communicated by the ultimate baroque monarch, Louis XIV.

There is much to delight the gardener and garden historian in this whirlwind of an exhibition. This was an age of magnificent, complex garden-making to complement magnificent oversized architecture. The key elements of the baroque are vastness of scale, the use of illusion and perspective to inspire awe and the use of extravagant rhetorical allegory to convey messages about power.

The splendour of many baroque gardens (often referred to as the French formal style) was recorded in dizzyingly detailed, often rarely seen bird’s-eye views.

PLANT PASSION

One of the reasons for the decline of British baroque gardens was that they were extremely expensive to build and maintain. Many were swept away by the mid-18th century fashion for the English landscape garden led by Capability Brown. But within this exhibition of towering architecture, extensive gardens and extraordinary hyperreal paintings, there is still, thankfully, room for a little idiosyncratic passion.

“When I get into storys (sic) of plants I know not how to get out” wrote Mary Somerset, Duchess of Beaufort, to one of her horticultural advisers, Hans Sloane. The Duchess was an unstoppable collector of plants and a pioneering gardener, rare, of course, because she was a woman (she even had a female gardener in charge of her greenhouse). Although she was excluded from formal education, her observations on the exotic – and hardy – plants in her collection were regarded as a serious

HET LOO, HOLLAND

Formal gardens created by William III from 1686 around his country retreat.

HAMPTON COURT

William III’s Baroque Privy Garden of 1702 is one of the most accurately reconstructed gardens of the period with an enormous swirling

The high level of the water table and numerous natural springs meant that his elaborate fountains, built parterre, fountains, original statues and wrought iron and gilded screens designed by Jean Tijou, which wrap around the garden at the river end (hrp.org.uk)

contribution to horticultural science. She introduced many plants to the English repertoire – including the zonal pelargonium from South Africa.

The unconventional and exuberant plant portraits she commissioned from Dutch artist Everhard Kick in 1703-05, to record her collection at Badminton House, are among the stars of the show.

CHATSWORTH

The exceptional scale and quality of the 17th-century gardens at Chatsworth are a perfect example of the way noblemen felt it was their duty to follow the example of the monarch and display their power on a grand scale. This was the to vie with those of Louis XIV, actually worked. Compact compared to Versailles but richly decorated

VAUX-LEVICOMTE, NEAR PARIS, FRANCE

These gardens were designed by André Le Nôtre before Versailles and inaugurated in 1661 with a performance of a play by Molière. with parterres, bosquets, canals, pavilions, urns and gilded statues, all restored in 1984. (paleishetloo.com)

Vaux-le-Vicomte has 81 acres of formal garden, 17 of which are enhanced with water. Brilliant tricks of perspective make the garden seem longer than it is. (vaux-le-vicomte. com/en)

time of Sir Christopher Wren, whose rebuilding of St Paul’s Cathedral after the Great Fire of London in 1666 was the largest building project of the age.

For Chatsworth, nestled in the valley of the river Derwent, a gruelling three days from London, William Cavendish, 4th Earl (later 1st Duke) of Devonshire commissioned a revolutionary palatial facade for the Elizabethan house that was almost overbearing in scale. But it was his new gardens that would really dazzle the visitor who made it to the Palace of the Peaks.

In direct response to the extraordinary scale of Louis XIV’s gardens at Versailles and Marly, and the impressive and elegant reworking of gardens