Category: landscape

Vintage landscape: the stage

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2 Piranhurst, California, 1917, F.B. Johnston, Library of CongressThe outdoor theater of the Piranhurst estate of Henry Ernest and Ellen Chabot Bothin, Montecito, California, 1917, hand-colored glass lantern slides by Frances Benjamin Johnston, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

4 Piranhurst, California, 1917, F.B. Johnston, Library of Congress

The Bothin’s fortune was made in coffee and spices (San Francisco), real estate, and water. Their estate became famous in the 1920s for the parties and performances held in its 350-acre “Tea Gardens” — which included the clipped cypress theater shown here.

3 Piranhurst, California, 1917, F.B. Johnston, Library of Congress
Looking from the stage to the box seats.

Today, the site is in ruins and is part of the Mar Y Cel open space preserve.  There are histories of the property here and here.

1 Piranhurst, California, 1917, F.B. Johnston, Library of Congress
The backstage wings, a photo by F. B. Johnston, 1917, also via Library of Congress.

Vintage landscape: the glads

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Gladiolus, 1944, Sweden, F. Bruno, Swedish National Heritage Board“Flower bed (blomsterrabatt) with gladiolus at Trädgårdsföreningen, The Garden Society of Gothenburg, founded in 1842,” Göteborg (Gothenburg), Sweden, 1944, a color slide by Fredrik Bruno, via Swedish National Heritage Board Commons on flickr.

The glads offer no solution:
being—falling—
you mustn’t count the days—
fulfillment
livid, tattered, or beautiful.

— Gottfried Benn, from “Gladioli“

Life in gardens: after lunch

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Västra Götaland, Lysekil, Lysekil, Bohuslän, Övrigt-Sällskapsliv“Three women, Lysekil, Sweden,” 1880s, a cyanotype by Carl Curman, via Swedish National Heritage Board Commons on flickr.

The woman at the top of the picture is Calla Curman, wife of the photographer.

For more images like this one, check out one of my favorite blogs, It’s About Time, which is currently posting a series, “Summer Women” — beautiful mostly 19th century paintings of women and children in the garden.

The Sunday porch: curls

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A repeat porch from October 2013. . .
The Sunday porch/enclos*ure: 1940 Kentucky farmhouse, by John Vachon, Library of CongressNicholas County, Kentucky, November 1940, by John Vachon, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

What frills attached to such a simple farmhouse and yard.

The Sunday porch/enclos*ure: 1940 Kentucky farmhouse, by John Vachon, Library of Congress

Her dress goes with the house and her curls with the porch.

Vintage landscape: Florence

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Palmieri, Firenze, ca. 1915, OSU on flickr“Palmieri, Firenze [ or Florence, Italy] – Box garden from level of tennis court,” ca. 1915, via Arthur Peck Collection, Oregon State University (OSU) Special Collections & Archives Commons on flickr.

Note the patterns of the clipped boxwood in the middle distance and those on the villa at the top.

Arthur Peck was a Professor of Landscape Architecture at the Oregon Agricultural College from 1908 to 1948. During his long career, he created a teaching library of 24 boxes of glass lantern slides — now in OSU’s archives.

Behind the house the upland falls
With many an odorous tree—
White marbles gleaming through green halls—
Terrace by terrace, down and down,
And meets the star-lit Mediterranean Sea.

‘Tis Paradise. . . .

— Herman Melville, from “After the Pleasure Party: Lines Traced Under an Image of Amor Threatening“