The Garden in her Mind
by James C. Christensen
16 x 16
Oil on Panel
$11500


The walled garden is a garden enclosed by high walls. These walls may serve a decorative or security purpose, but their original function in the North Temperate Zone was to shelter the garden from wind and frost.  This shelter can raise the ambient temperature within the garden by several degrees, creating a micro climate that permits plants to be grown that would not survive in the natural climate.  Most walls were constructed from stone, but by lining the walls with brick, which absorbs and retains solar heat, the temperature against that wall was raised, allowing peaches, nectarines and grapes to be grown against south-facing walls as espaliers as far north as the British Isles.

The traditional design of a walled garden, split into four quarters separated by paths, and a wellhead or pool at the centre, dates back to the very earliest gardens of Persia. The Hortus Conclusus or “enclosed garden” of High Medieval Europe was more typically enclosed by hedges or fencing, or the arcades of a cloister. Though not specifically walled gardens, they afforded some protection from weather and straying animals.

These gardens can represent our own view of Paradise, a protected and nurtured space in which ideas and people, like plants and flowers, can flourish. The idea of a controlled safe place can represent the family, the community or even the space in one’s own mind. 

This series explores the metaphor of the enclosed garden. I created five panels with the same format of garden walls. Within and without the walls I developed different interpretations of the garden spaces and the symbolic possibilities of Hortus Conclusis.

Contact Chris Usher at the Greenwich Workshop Gallery for a personal viewing of these very special original paintings.
Call 203.881.7722 (or 800.243.4260) or email: fairfield@greenwichworkshopgallery.com