A sculpture garden or sculpture park is an outdoor

garden A garden is a planned space, usually outdoors, set aside for the cultivation, display, and enjoyment of plants and other forms of nature. The single feature identifying even the wildest wild garden is ''control''. The garden can incorporate bot ...

or park which includes the presentation of

sculpture Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...

, usually several permanently sited works in durable materials in landscaped surroundings. A sculpture garden may be private, owned by a museum and accessible freely or for a fee, or public and accessible to all. Some cities own large numbers of public sculptures, some of which they may present together in city parks. Exhibits range from individual, traditional sculptures to large site-specific installations. Sculpture gardens may also vary greatly in size and scope, either featuring the collected works of multiple artists, or the artwork of a single individual. These installations are related to several similar concepts, most notably

land art Land art, variously known as Earth art, environmental art, and Earthworks, is an art movement that emerged in the 1960s and 1970s, largely associated with Great Britain and the United StatesArt in the modern era: A guide to styles, schools, & mov ...

, where landscapes become the basis of a site-specific sculpture, and

topiary Topiary is the horticultural practice of training perennial plants by clipping the foliage and twigs of trees, shrubs and subshrubs to develop and maintain clearly defined shapes, whether geometric or fanciful. The term also refers to plants w ...

gardens, which consists of clipping or training live plants into living sculptures. A sculpture trail layout may be adopted, either in a park or through open countryside. The Irwell Sculpture Trail, the largest public art scheme in England, includes 28 art pieces along a footpath stretching from Salford Quays through Bury into

Rossendale Rossendale may refer to several places and organizations in Lancashire, England: Places *Rossendale Valley, a river valley *Borough of Rossendale, a local government district *Rossendale (UK Parliament constituency), a former parliamentary constitu ...

and up to the

Pennines The Pennines (), also known as the Pennine Chain or Pennine Hills, are a range of uplands running between three regions of Northern England: North West England on the west, North East England and Yorkshire and the Humber on the east. Commonly ...

above

Bacup Bacup ( , ) is a town in the Rossendale Borough in Lancashire, England, in the South Pennines close to Lancashire's boundaries with West Yorkshire and Greater Manchester. The town is in the Rossendale Valley and the upper Irwell Valley, ea ...

History

Sculpture gardens have a long history around the world – the oldest known collection of human constructions is a

Neanderthal Neanderthals (, also ''Homo neanderthalensis'' and erroneously ''Homo sapiens neanderthalensis''), also written as Neandertals, are an extinct species or subspecies of archaic humans who lived in Eurasia until about 40,000 years ago. While ...

"sculpture garden" unearthed in Bruniquel Cave in France in 1990. Within the cave, broken stalagmites were arranged in a series of stacked or ring-like structures approximately 175,000 years ago.

Garden statue The predominant garden types in the ancient world were domestic gardens and sacred gardens. Sculpture of gods and kings were placed in temple compounds, along with sacred lakes and sacred groves. It is not known whether statues were placed in Greek ...

s, often of very high quality, were a feature of

ancient Roman garden Roman gardens and ornamental horticulture became highly developed under Roman civilization, and thrived from 150 BC to 350 AD. The Gardens of Lucullus (''Horti Lucullani''), on the Pincian Hill in Rome, introduced the Persian garden to Europe ar ...

s, revived at the

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass id ...

, and then especially a feature of the Baroque garden. Palace gardens, such as the

Gardens of Versailles The Gardens of Versailles (french: Jardins du château de Versailles ) occupy part of what was once the ''Domaine royal de Versailles'', the royal demesne of the château of Versailles. Situated to the west of the palace, the gardens cover some ...

, featured a concentration of sculpture equalling that of larger modern sculpture parks. In the United States, the oldest public sculpture garden is a part of the joint park and wildlife preserve Brookgreen Gardens, located in South Carolina. The property was opened in 1932, and has since been included on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artist ...

References

External links

Garden A garden is a planned space, usually outdoors, set aside for the cultivation, display, and enjoyment of plants and other forms of nature. The single feature identifying even the wildest wild garden is ''control''. The garden can incorporate bot ...

Types of art museums and galleries Types of garden {{Garden-stub

History

See also

References

Further reading

External links