There are monsters in the garden
Gardens are often perceived as peaceful places, havens from the difficulties and disorder of everyday life. If the people of the Renaissance felt the same way, why are gardens from that era full of monsters?
According to Dr Luke Morgan of Monash University’s Department of Fine Arts, the monsters are a sign that it's time to acknowledge that gardens have always had a 'dark side'.
“By ‘monsters’ I mean grotesque and hybrid figures, which are, by early modern criteria, abnormal or monstrous. Monstrous sculptures appear in both major and minor gardens throughout the Renaissance,” said Dr Morgan.
“It is especially interesting that these images appear so frequently during the Renaissance – generally regarded as a period in which designers of gardens, like artists, aimed to produce idealised images of nature.
Dr Morgan believes our whole perception of gardens needs to be re-framed to take account of their monstrosity.
"Historically, gardens are indeed havens, but they're more complex than that - they have an unsettling side as well."
The images of monsters and the uses to which gardens were sometimes put suggest that they have not always been thought of as pleasant, calm and untroubled spaces.
"Gardens have always been places apart - removed from ordinary social space. For example, there's many stories of courtship and love-making in gardens from the Renaissance, but these are not always of the acceptable kind," said Dr Morgan.
"The Marquis de Sade, in his travel diaries, points out that a number of Renaissance gardens would make good spots for consummating illicit affairs."
Dr Morgan said that although his research is challenging the popular perception of gardens, he is not trying to ruin their reputation as places of beauty and refuge.
"People want gardens to be calm, pleasant places. I'm not denying this idea. I'm trying to restore a more complex and historically accurate idea of gardens. They're beautiful, but can also be a little frightening.
"I think the pleasure that people derived from them was made more poignant by the potential for terror. An arcadia, to be an arcadia, has to be fleeting."
Dr Morgan's research has been published in the journal Studies in the History of Gardens and Designed Landscapes and he is also writing a book on the topic.