Is gardening an art form?

Yes it is an art form.

 

I would most certainly agree that it is, a natural one

It takes a lot of work to get a fantastic garden and its all about aesthetics, even if it is personal taste, just like art.

Best

Jeff

 

I love this topic...

I work as a graphic/website designer as my day/night/weekend/every hour god sends career choice and create artwork for many different purposes and even more varied media. My garden however is most definitely an art form but for a multitude of different reasons than what would normally, acceptably be classed as "art"...

Sight: Colours, shapes, arrangement, size, etc...
Sound: Water, Leaves, Wind though plants, rustles, etc...
Touch: Textures - flowers, leaves, water, grass, stone, wood... you name it!
Smell: Plants, soil, grass... everything!

I don't know about everybody else and this might sound a bit weird, but the garden for me has become something of a complete sensory experience. Couple this with it being one of the most rewarding and relaxing "artworks" that i've ever created (and spent time in)... i would defy anyone to not see the beauty and "art" in a garden.

How many other forms of art can you actually physically get into?

 

Is gardening an art form? No, its more than mere art, especially if one takes into consideration all of the skills needed in the making and upkeep of a garden.

In its simplest form, art is the creation of an image of an object. A garden is creating an object from an image. Therefore, it could be considered a form of engineering. After all, engineers create objects from images.

If, as I said at the beginning, it is more than mere art, it is also more than a form of mere engineering. I would use the term Creative.

 

Quite tricky to answer this question - I always think back to an episode of 'Top Gear' - where it was asked whether an exotic super car could ever be considered to be art - after all a lot of effort goes into its design to make it appealing to the eye.

The reponse was no, the guy (owner of an art gallery) went on to explain that for something to be considered art - it must have no other purpose than to be itself. So a painting is art - because it has no use other than as a painting. A car is not art because its purpose is to be driven.

On this basis a garden cannot be art - because it has a multitude of uses - bbq's/other social gatherings; growing veg; wildife habitat. If it was just something you create to look at, and nothing else, then it would come under the art defintion .

 

Gardening is both Science and Art, and I enjoy both.

 

What a question! Obviously many mundane tasks like mowing the lawn, digging, weeding etc are not art. But garden design is; the layout, the planting and even pruning among other things are, or I should say, can be. I've had a career working in the visual arts and throughout that time I have also been a keen gardener. I've got a good eye and eyeing up what will look good and what won't has been a keystone in my approach to my own garden design. Not everything has worked and I have planted things in the wrong place, in the wrong soil, the wrong aspect etc. You need to be flexible and be prepared to move things if the situation is wrong for whatever reason. This makes it dynamic. Consideration of what will look good with what else and in what situation is important. And nothing, or very few plantings will look good ALL THE TIME. This makes it creative, how to maximise the time when plantings will look good, by adding this or that in the dull times. Bulbs are good for that.

This year I planted a Mediterranean style courtyard garden. And I realise I was planting a re-creation of my grandmother's real Mediterranean garden which I loved as a child. I also realised how much of an influence her garden had been on my life, my personal creative life as a designer and craftsman and my gardening life. It was and still is a very creative process. Here are some pictures of the beginning; the garden has a way to go yet but the creative process is very much an ongoing thing. It will grow and change and that is part of the creative process.

 

What is art?

I see art as the manifestation of passion, or a unique interpretation.

A super car is a piece of art. It is the manifestation of the passion that the designers and engineers put into it.

If you look at a plant and see anything other than an assembly of minerals and water, then that is art.

If you do gardening purely as a chore, following instructions to create someone else's design, andyou do not appreciate the result, even if it is textbook perfect, then it is probably not art, but if you do it your way, because you want to, then you are doing art even if the result is not to anyone else's taste.

 

Some of the replies here don't relate to gardening but to gardens themselves, take another look at the question.

 

Isn't garden design part of gardening?

 

I am definitely not an artist going by my gardening layouts!! I did once buy a "complete" border plants collection. It had all the plants and where and how far to plant them apart. Trouble is it never worked as some plants they supplied did not like my soil ,others did.Some plants overwhelmed others etc. In the end like a lot of gardeners it is a ongoing thing,some plants work others do not but we are always trying to get the blend correct.
I do think gardening is an art form of sorts as when I look at peoples gardens in Amateur Gardening magazine everything blends,the colours, heights,etc but they have takes years & years to get it to that perfection.
I think the ultimate for art form to the highest degree must be the Chelsea flower show ,never been but must be awesome to see.

 

I too believe gardening is an art form - though not for everyone. Some people do it just in a functional, workmanlike way, or are not concerned with aesthetics. I know lots of people who garden but who have no interest or feel for the beauty of the plants, they scorn and dismiss my talk of beauty, and are utterly uninterested in either the ecological, or artistic, benefits of a garden. One of the reasons I more or less gave up doing freelance gardening for others was because I was sick of working in ordinary, uninspiring gardens, where the owners only wanted the most prosaic, everyday, carbon copy gardens - and only for it to look "nice" so that it would add a few quid to the value of their property. So I am afraid in the wrong hands it is purely a case of functionality. A friend who lives in Georgia (Europe, not Georgia USA) says that his neighbours are bemused by the concept of gardening for anything other than agricultural and edible purposes. This does not mean it is not an art though, in other hands. From cultivating unusual and beautiful new plants purely for decoration, to the whole spread of a majestic garden, it is an art, and we only have to look at how the great gardens of Antiquity have been created for decorative and aesthetic purposes, and how they inspired the paintings of such artists as Monet. I have based my garden on artistic principles to the extent that every arrangement is undertaken with appearance and colour schemes in mind. I have gathered fallen wood, and large rocks and sandstone, and placed these in various arrangements to create vague borders or sections. I have found odd objects and displayed them among the plants. The land used to be an inn, and I have found a huge beer barrel that I have requisitioned as a bird table. I like to think that the scene is pleasing, or at least interesting, to the eye, and I put as much energy into the planning and sketching out of the garden as I do my other artistic pursuits.

 

I like this answer. Your garden sounds like a garden gallery, embracing the senses as a gallery of paintings does the eye. Do you have any photos of it?