C'est Inspiré is simply that - what is inspiring. Where the words end, images continue to speak. Seeing all that is around us, we seek some aspect of something that is life enhancing... something that you would like to be reminded of - to revisit. Something to capture and bring into your world, not leave behind... . That is why I take a camera everywhere; have spent countless hours organizing images in scrapbooks and pouring over them later to revisit the place, the people, the memory.
So, C'est Inspiré may be a single photo - or it may be 50, it may mean one thing to me, another to you - the meaning isn't important. Did it inspire? Did it make you smile? Did it bring back a pleasant memory? One or all of the above will do.
During a brief period of his life, the legendary art historian Bernard Berenson kept diaries where he wrote about how to see - and what he saw. These diaries were published under the title The Passionate Sightseer and edited by Raymund Mortimer.
Anyone, anywhere, anytime can be a passionate sightseer - just look.
The end of summer quietly announces itself –
Roses on the wane, legginess in the herbaceous border, a potager less than plentiful – clematis paniculata blanketing anything and everything, and the apples soon ready for picking.
Each year during the last week of August and the first part of September, I gather what is still blooming, mix it with leaves, herbs, and often-times branches and vines from the woods nearby, to create my last bouquets of summer. I photograph each one as a reminder of the ‘flower friends’ that cling to the end of the season. They give me another reason to examine what worked in the garden this year, and the research needed to make it better next year.
This year I have harvested the lemon verbena, dried it in flat baskets and stored it in air-tight containers to make infusions after dinner parties this winter. Leaves dried to be enjoyed all winter are an important note, connecting one year to the next. Labor Day weekend pestos were made with parsley, combined with pistachios as well as several varieties of basil (which thrived this summer)… soon to be tossed with fusilli.
While I feel somewhat like a squirrel gathering nuts for the winter, there are many plants that are faithful September friends. After a long Sunday morning beach walk with a good friend, we walked back to her home and took in the garden. She is an expert gardener, with an enviable knowledge of horticulture. Her garden includes perfectly clipped boxwoods, with pyramids of sculpted hornbeam and a wall of hydrangea serving as a backdrop. I delight in my own hydrangeas each year. The robust white clusters of these flowers announce the end of summer, and serve as symbols of hope. They offer a visual and psychological transition – a smooth passage to another abundant season.
I came away with two ideas, as one cannot help themselves when visiting such a garden…. A gorgeous tree - fagus sybiatica rohani – a curly leafed member of the beech family, the dark green leaves of which are shadowed with red. Where to place one in my garden? Something to ponder this winter.
The other idea for borders, against walls or around my fountain, laburia guarantica – “Argentine sky,” beautiful and delicate spires of blue. When my salvias have gone their flowering distance, this one takes the baton into fall. I look forward to gathering more ideas – from other friends, or on my own , whenever that might be – visiting famous gardens or just reading a book by the fire, trying to visualize what I am plotting and scheming, perhaps dreaming.
As this summer melts into fall, I feel great about my garden this year. A garden of twenty years – plotted, planned, bulldozed, ripped apart & replanted, prayed for and most of all enjoyed. I have photographed every corner and every plant. I have scrapbooks that remind me time and time again that gardens, like houses, are living breathing things. They are ‘a work in progress.’ People often ask “are you done” – they clearly do not understand. What does “done” mean? I never want to be done – the joy is in the doing, the puttering, the planning, the planting, the arranging…that soothing cup of tea, the fragrant pesto for dinner and the flower arrangement for the table. Simple pleasures – and luxurious ones at that!
All photography by Charlottte Moss.
September 30, 2009
Gardens are often obsessions – they provide distractions from other responsibilities, although having one is a responsibility itself. Petrarch, the 18th C. Italian poet, considered gardens ideal for poetry, instruction and introspection. They can provide food, maybe just flowers, or perhaps none of the above – simply a green tapestry clipped, pruned, espaliered or pleached. Whatever its shape, size, location or purpose, we can unequivocally say that above all a garden is a source of delight – a patch of pleasure – a symbol of ourselves, a thing of beauty to be savored – every precious satisfying moment.
Every summer, when I plan a trip to Europe (I always create the time) it is my opportunity to get away – really away – and completely recharge. I plan extensively so that I can maximize each day visiting sites and soaking up the local culture. This year, it was a tour of villas and gardens for 8 days on Lakes Garda, Como & Maggiore in Northern Italy. Visits to France and England followed, for a photo shoot at Vaux-le-Vicomte and a visit to Mapperton House, nestled in the English countryside near Dorset, where the garden and surrounding parklands date back to the 16th Century.
The following is my travel scrapbook from three countries and four memorable gardens….
#1: Villa Balbianello
The undisputed star of lakeside villas, few places compare to the Villa Balbianello. The villa is situated idyllically, between the cool wind descending from the Swiss Alps to the North, and the warm Tuscan sun to the South. Built as a convent, the 18th Century date unknown, two small structures clung to the Dosso d’Avedo promontory – a jagged peninsula jutting out almost to the center of Lake Como. It was developed over time by several aristocratic Italian families to become the spectacular property that it is today. The 19th Century ushered in a new appreciation for the romantic landscape of the lakes region, as a vacationland and hot-bed of European society. Numerous paintings document the villa’s prominence, as it was passed from one illustrious familia to the next. It seems that each owner so cherished the property – which is bordered on three sides by the lake and on the fourth by a lush, wooded hillside – that it was lavishly maintained, even when empty for decades at a time. It not only survived occupation, a revolution, restoration and two world wars, it was never looted or defaced in any such way. Following the death of her husband and the end of World War I, the mysterious widow the Marquise Marie Arconati Visconti Peyrat reluctantly sold the property to an ambitious young American, Butler Ames. Ames and his wife spent every summer at the villa for the rest of their years (except during WWII), painstakingly restoring the 19th century interior. The guest book holds some of the world’s most famous names, including those of Mary Pickford and Jacqueline Kennedy.
In the Ames’ will, it was stipulated that Villa Balbianello could not be sold until at least 20 years after their death. Despite this romantic notion, that the villa would go on in its old world fashion, the family did sell exactly 20 years later, to the gentleman and world explorer, Guido Monzino. Monzino could not have been a better choice, contributing to the villa his great energy, vast resources and exquisite taste. He lived in the legendary house, inhabiting its hilltop perch, until his premature death in 1988. The residence and a significant sum of money dedicated to its maintenance, were donated to the FAI (Fondo per l’Ambiente Italiano or The Italian Fund for the Environment).
The Official Website
#2: Isola Bella
Her terraced gardens glittering with Italian baroque marble and statuary, she beckons. One can only reach Isola Bella by water. The 17th Century home of a legendary family, the House of Borromeo, the villa at Isola Bella is grand, with architectural details, mosaics and vistas at every turn. However, the gardens are the elaborate, sensational frame around the picture. I wandered the tree-lined promenades, gazing on sparkling waters and the labors of man - elaborate stonework, garden ornaments and enormous topiaries provide focal points along the path.
#3: Vaux-le-Vicomte
Precursor to the divine opulence of Versailles, and the grand era of The Sun King, Vaux-le-Vicomte was the first collaboration of three legendary designers: landscape architect Andre Le Nôtre (1613-1700), architect Louis Le Vau (1612-1670) and the artist Charles Le Brun (1619-1690). Built between 1658 and 1661 for Nicholas Fouquet, then Superintendent of Finance under King Louis XIV, the country chateau at Vaux-le-Vicomte was the largest, most elaborate and certainly the most expensive house ever to have been built in France. The surrounding gardens and parkland was formerly the site of not one but three villages, which were purchased and then leveled to allow the vast sightlines, seeming to go on into infinity. Revered as the first “real” French garden, Vaux-le-Vicomte combines the baroque style with a new, grander sort of pomp – a magnificence later to be associated with King Louis XIV. The initial pleasure was short lived by the chateau’s owner, however. Following an enormous and infamous fête, held on the 17th of August 1661, the proud Fouquet was arrested, imprisoned for life, and his wife exiled…a harsh punishment for having out-fêted the king!
Avenues, allées, vistas, colonnades and tunnels all act as garden architecture and create a feeling of ceremony, anticipation, excitement, protection and discovery. Lime trees, hornbeam, beech, plane trees, apples, pears and more are planted according to mathematical formulas and then clipped and pruned with precision.
www.vaux-le-vicomte.com
#4: Mapperton
Not built as a “palace” to impress or to humble foreign leaders, this manor house was first built in the mid 16th century from the golden stone carved out of local hillsides. Perfected over the centuries by only four families who have lived here, there are several layers of gardening to be excavated. The buildings are set on a hill with a commanding view, starting with the formal gardens (as new as the 1920′s), the 17th century fish ponds, and followed by the lazy countryside…. Whether as a simple retreat from society, the perfect disembarkation point for a fox hunt, or the inspiration for Nancy Lancaster’s abstract topiary garden at Ditcheley, Mapperton stands as it has for almost 500 years – on its own.
www.mapperton.com
All photography by Charlotte Moss.
September 10, 2009
