Is Gardening an Art Form?
By Harvey Cross
At My Art Uplifts, we usually write about more common artistic pursuits such as painting, sketching, or other relatively well-known forms, but the wonderful weather we've been lucky enough to have recently (depending on where you are) has inspired me to look outside the box, or more precisely, look outside the art studio.
Tulip Gardening by Sue Kelly
When it’s a lovely, sunny day, I might gather up my paints or snatch a handful of pencils before heading out into the garden, so that I can work on my hobbies whilst simultaneously basking in the sun like a greedy lizard. Also, I became really pale during the last lockdown and I'm worried I’ll just disappear if it ever happens to snow again, so I've been trying to get out in the sun as much as I can lately. This got me thinking about a few other ideas for artistic things that can be done out in the sun, because, if you're anything like me, you're also a bit fed up with being stuck inside this year.
Immediately, the first thing I thought of was vandalism; practising some strongly worded street art on your neighbours wall because their dogs keep crapping outside the front doorstep, does sound like a fun idea, I’m sure that’s how Banksy got their start, but alas, I thought I’d best steer away from that one because of the whole, ‘criminal record’ thing. It was at that moment I noticed my neighbour, ‘Mr. P’, smile at me from across the road before crouching down and planting something in his garden, “he doesn’t look like a criminal, but I wonder if Mr. P’s ever vandalised anything, maybe his long white beard is just a disguise” I thought, before studying exactly what he was doing a bit more closely.
Mr. P’s garden is, and always has been, perfectly groomed, he used to tell me that he had won some awards for his best flowers a few years ago, he’d lose me when he started saying their Latin names but the beauty of his garden easily convinced me he was telling the truth. Bright explosions of red tulips, roses of every colour, cascading down from their perches on the side of his house, and flowering lupins the size of monoliths that burst out of the shrubbery. Truth be told I’m just googling and guessing these names, I don’t know what they’re actually called, but Mr. P’s garden is very nice, it is his own earthy canvas that he has painted with every colour of nature. So I started thinking, surely something like gardening is just as valid and expressive a form of artwork as any other?
I haven’t really thought about it before, perhaps because I am a teenager and something like gardening still seems firmly in the realm of ‘Dad Activities’ to me, but if you know what you're doing then I suppose there’s nothing stopping you from making something really beautiful out of horticulture, if that’s the right word?
I have previously written about the endless amount of mental health benefits that art in the form of painting, drawing, actually any form of art really, has the power to bestow on us, but the exact same seems the case when it comes to gardening. A reduction of feelings of depression and anxiety has commonly been observed in individuals after they were introduced to gardening, furthermore it is believed that gardening helps prevent cognitive decline in older people as caring for plants becomes a regular daily activity.
Just like how a painter enjoys the freedom being able to choose exactly what colour or brushstroke goes where, the gardener experiences the same freedom by combining multiple different plants to craft a beautiful sanctuary. In fact you could argue that unlike painting, gardening can also be a demanding activity and contribute to good physical health, believe me when I say ‘can be demanding’, I used to dig holes for planting in the garden with my dad when I was younger and I felt like I was serving hard time.
Finally, as well as being about the most eco-friendly hobby I can think of, you can garden with a friend too, turning the experience into a fun social activity.
After doing this research, I then began to wonder why it was that gardening isn’t regarded as an art form more commonly, it's certainly artistic, and plenty of people really enjoy going to gardens all over the world, but I don’t think I've ever heard anyone come up to me and tell me outright that they see gardening as an art form, not even good old Mr. P . Actually, now I think about it if someone just came up to me off the street and said “gardening is an art form” before walking away again that would be quite strange, but you get what I mean.
Perhaps the reason we don’t regularly see gardens as artwork is because of the medium’s lack of longevity. When we think of famous artworks we are often drawn to the beautiful works of history like the Mona Lisa, Van Gogh’s Starry Night, or the Creation of Adam, all of which have existed for a very long time. Whereas a garden requires constant care to endure the years and a freak weather event might suddenly wipe it out.
Everybody knows about the Mona Lisa, it is visited by over eight million people each year, and it is so well protected that its likely to survive for countless years into the future, while a garden requires its own conservation, cannot be kept at a convenient location like a museum or gallery, and will inevitably become harder to maintain as climates change.
Maybe, it’s as simple as not enough of us are visiting truly beautiful gardens and are seeing just how wonderful an artwork they are, anyway, whatever the reason might be, I do believe that gardening is just as valid an art form as any, and can certainly be enjoyed during our recently wonderful weather.