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 both ...

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 Landscape architecture is the design of outdoor areas, landmarks, and structures to achieve environmental, social-behavioural, or aesthetic outcomes. It involves the systematic design and general engineering of various structures for constructio ...

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

park A park is an area of natural, semi-natural or planted space set aside for human enjoyment and recreation or for the protection of wildlife or natural habitats. Urban parks are urban green space, green spaces set aside for recreation inside t ...

s. 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, 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 A sculpture trail - also known as "a culture walk" or "art trail" - is a walkway through open-air galleries of outdoor sculptures along a defined route with sequenced viewings encountered from planned preview and principal sight lines. Setting ...

layout may be adopted, either in a park or through open countryside. The

Irwell Sculpture Trail The Irwell Sculpture Trail is the largest public art scheme in England, commissioning regional, national and international artists. The Trail includes 28 art pieces and follows a well established footpath stretching from Salford Quays through ...

, the largest public art scheme in England, includes 28 art pieces along a footpath stretching from

Salford Quays Salford Quays is an area of Salford, Greater Manchester, England, near the end of the Manchester Ship Canal. Previously the site of Manchester Docks, it became one of the first and largest urban regeneration projects in the United Kingdom foll ...

through

Bury Bury may refer to: *The burial of human remains *-bury, a suffix in English placenames Places England * Bury, Cambridgeshire, a village * Bury, Greater Manchester, a town, historically in Lancashire ** Bury (UK Parliament constituency) (1832–19 ...

into Rossendale 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. Commo ...

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, east of ...

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 th ...

"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 statues, often of very high quality, were a feature of ancient Roman gardens, 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 ideas ...

, and then especially a feature of the

Baroque garden The Baroque garden was a style of garden based upon symmetry and the principle of imposing order on nature. The style originated in the late-16th century in Italy, in the gardens of the Vatican and the Villa Borghese gardens in Rome and in the ga ...

. 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 som ...

, 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 Brookgreen Gardens is a sculpture garden and wildlife preserve, located just south of Murrells Inlet, in South Carolina. The property includes several themed gardens featuring American figurative sculptures, the Lowcountry Zoo, and trails thro ...

, 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 artistic v ...

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 both ...

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

History

See also

References

Further reading

External links