The Gardens Trust will offer a four part online series exploring contrasts, conflicts and harmonies in French Riviera garden design on Tuesdays, beginning October 25. The live webinar begins at 10 British Standard Time, which is really, really early in the morning, but a link to the recorded session will be sent shortly after each session ends and will be available for one week. The registration link HERE is for the entire course of 4 sessions, for £16 through Eventbrite, or you may purchase a ticket for individual sessions, costing £5. Attendees will be sent a Zoom link 2 days (and again a few hours) prior to the start of the first talk.
This is a series that moves inland from the coast but never far from Mediterranean blues whether from the sky or the sea. Fertility was created in these ancient landscapes by forming terraces or restanques which can still be seen planted with vines, olives, fruit or vegetables. The gardens that surround many of the villas we will explore have used these terraces to decorative and productive effect. Renoir understood that you don’t paint the leaves on olive trees but the play of light between them, Mediterranean light has inspired artists in every sphere. We can appropriate Homer and the Odyssey to take a journey from this landscape’s classical roots to its challenging contemporary art by way of impressionism and surrealism. The tastes are eclectic and the plantsmanship glorious set within an array of architecture and arboreal canopies.
We set the scene in the first session in the 1920s with Comte Charles de Noailles and his wife Marie-Laure who were painted by Picasso following their marriage in 1923. They commissioned Robert Mallet-Stevens to build a summer Modernist villa in the hills above Hyères, an innovative modernist response linking the gleaming white house and garden – the Villa Noailles. The gardens were designed by Gabriel Guevrekian. Edith Wharton was a neighbour and good friend to both the Noailles and Lawrence Johnston. In contrast writer, designer, caricaturist, decorator, painter, ironworker, landscaper and French lithographer Ferdinand Bac argued that architecture should look to the colours of the ancient Mediterranean cultures. From 1919-1927 he designed his masterpiece across 6 hectares at Les Colombieres above Menton for the Ladan-Bockairy’s. From 1995 the house and gardens were restored by Michael and Margaret Likierman.
Presenter Caroline Holmes is an experienced and accomplished lecturer working for a wide range of organisations including leading tour and cruise operators. She is an Accredited Lecturer of The Arts Society and is also a Course Director for the University of Cambridge Institute of Continuing Education. Her own gardens are open to the public and have featured in many magazine articles and on television in both Britain and Japan. Since the 1990s she has been researching, writing about and lecturing on the Riviera. Caroline is author of 12 books, her latest being Where the wildness pleases – the English garden celebrated (2021).
