Art Is Where You Find It -
Topiary Art
Artists for millennia have tried to capture the shapes and colors of flowers in trees on canvas, sculpture, or photographs. But it is unusual to find the natural
landscape itself as an intentional work of art.
Landscapers and gardeners create beauty with artistic selections of plant materials, using color themes and a variety of plant sizes and textures. Gardeners often
add statuary, garden signs, and other ornaments. These are indeed examples of art in nature. But intentional nature art is most exemplified in topiary gardens.
What is Topiary Art?
For some, topiaries are the round ball of artificial foliage on a stick, stuck into a pot filled with rocks and sphagnum moss, that crafters use. Martha Stewart types
hot-glue birds or drape ribbons on them.
Real topiary art is found in ornamental gardens. Trees and shrubs are trimmed into non-natural shapes, usually geometric forms or animals.
The History of Topiary Art
The earliest historical evidence of topiary art comes from the writings of Pliny the Elder (38 BC-14 AD), who attributed its discovery to Gnaius Mattius, a friend of Emperor
Augustus. That attribution, however, seems more political than factual, considering that Roman gardens were tended by slaves (Those who pruned shrubbery were called “topiarius.”),
who came from all over the Roman Empire, bringing their skills and cultures with them. It makes sense that the slaves may have brought topiary art along with a variety of non-native
plant materials that have been found in Roman gardens.
There is some archaeological evidence that topiary art existed in ancient Egypt, Pompeii, and possibly in ancient Persia. A papyrus from 1340-1300 BC, for example, shows a symmetrical
planting of palms and cone-shaped trees around a pool.
When the Roman Empire fell, only a few topiary gardens remained, usually behind castle or monastery walls. Illuminated manuscripts, which sometimes bore the image of topiary trees cut
in beautiful shapes, is one clue that they continued.
Topiary gained a rebirth during the Renaissance in Italy. Gardens displayed topiary vases, urns, temples, spheres, and all manner of animals. There were shrub sculptures of giants,
warriors, witches, philosophers, popes, and other church officials.
As topiary moved into Europe, the art form was shaped by the climate and the cultures who embraced it. France used topiary mainly as architectural features in gardens, creating low,
complex boxwood patterns and tall cones or obelisks.
The Dutch and the English made gardens of geometrical and architectural shapes as well as producing sculptures of birds, animals,
and people. The English refined the geometrical patterning into the famous Tudor knot garden, low intertwined hedges that resembled the Celtic knot work evident in jewelry and clothing
ornamentation. They also sculpted fantastical creatures from plant materials: sea monsters, satyrs, and centaurs.
It wasn't until Netherlands-born William of Orange took the English throne in 1688 that topiary gardens enjoyed a Golden Age. Rosemary, yew, boxwood, juniper, and holly were trimmed and
clipped into fantastic shapes. Writer Horace Walpole wrote: “Gods, animals, and other objects were no longer carved out of stone: but the trees, shrubs and hedges were made to do double.”
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