THE ARTIST’S GARDEN

by Jackie Bennett (White Lion £30)

SUBTITLED ‘ The Secret Spaces That Inspired Great Art’, Bennett’s intriguing book crosses the rarely breached divide between love of gardening and love of visual art.

The extraordinary discovery here is that so many of the gardens that great artists were inspired by, or even dug weeds out of, are still there. Monet’s lilies: still there! The pictures are roughly split between artworks of fond memory, such as Summer Evening On The Skagen Southern Beach ( above), by Peder Severin Kroyer, up-to-date photographs of flowers and, occasionally, wonderful garden plans that all keen gardeners will pore over with magnifying glasses.

They’re all here: Cezanne, Kahlo, Renoir, Kandinsky, Dali. If any were alive today, I wonder if they’d install a barbecue?