WikiWorks at 15:25, 9 April 2007

2007-04-09T15:25:13Z

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[[Image:Kensington Palace from the south by Kip (1724).jpg|thumb|right|220px|[[Kensington Palace]] engraved by [[Jan Kip]] for ''Britannia Illustrata'', 1707/8]]

[[Image:Waddesdon.Parterre.gif|thumb|right|200px|The left hand side of the completely symmetrical parterre at [[Waddesdon Manor]], England]]

A '''parterre''' is a formal garden construction on a level surface consisting of planting beds, edged in stone or tightly clipped [[hedge (gardening)|hedging]], and gravel paths arranged to form a pleasing, usually symmetrical pattern. Parterres need not have any flowers at all. French parterres were elaborated out of 16th-century [[knot garden]]s, and reached a climax at the [[Chateau of Versailles]] and its many European imitators, such as Kensington Palace (''illustration, right'').

The word ''parterre'' comes from [[French language|French]], "on the ground" where it is used in the same sense but also has several other meanings, for example, that [[Parterre (Theatre)|part of the auditorium of a theatre]] that may also be called in English "orchestra seats" or the "stalls".

==Examples==
At Kensington Palace, then a suburb of London, the planting of the parterres was by [[Henry Wise]], whose nursery was nearby at [[Brompton, Kensington|Brompton]]. In the engraving of 1707/08, (''illustration, right''), the up-to-date [[Baroque]] designs of each section are clipped scrolling designs, symmetrical around a center, in low hedging punctuated by trees formally clipped into cones; however, their traditional 17th century layout, a broad central gravel walk dividing paired plats, each subdivided in four, appears to have survived from the Palace's former (pre-1689) existence as Nottingham House. Subsidiary wings have subsidiary parterres, with no attempt at overall integration.

[[Image:Summer Garden (Zubov).jpg|thumb|200px|[[Summer Garden]] in [[St Petersburg]], 1716.]]

In the UK, modern parterres exist at [[Birr Castle]] in Ireland, at [[Drumlanrig Castle]] in [[Dumfriesshire]] and at [[Bodysgallen Hall]] near [[Llandudno]].

Some early knot gardens have been covered over by lawn or other landscaping, but the original traces are still visible as undulations in the present day landscape. An example of this phenomenon is the early 17th century garden of [[Muchalls Castle]] in [[Scotland]].

==Development of the parterre==
The parterre was developed in France by [[Claude Mollet]], the founder of a dynasty of nurserymen-designers that lasted deep into the 18th century. His inspiration in developing the 16th-century patterned ''compartimens''—simple interlaces formed of herbs, either open and infilled with sand or closed and filled with flowers— was the painter Etienne du Pérac, who returned from Italy to the château of [[Anet]], where he and Mollet were working. About 1595 Mollet introduced compartment-patterned parterres to royal gardens at [[Saint-Germain-en-Laye]] and [[Fontainebleau]]; the fully-developed scrolling embroidery-like ''parterres en broderie'' appear for the first time in Alexandre Francini’s engraved views of the revised planting plans at Fontainebleau and Saint-Germain-en-Laye in 1614 [http://www.doaks.org/Evelyn/evel009.pdf].
[[Image:BirrCastle_Parterre.jpg|thumb|right|200px|Modern Parterre at [[Birr Castle]], Ireland]]
Clipped [[Buxus|box]] met with resistance from garden patrons for its "naughtie smell" as the herbalist [[Gervase Markham]] described it. By 1638, [[Jacques Boyceau]] described the range of designs in box a gardener should be able to provide
:"Parterres are the low embellishments of gardens, which have great grace, especially when seen from an elevated position: they are made of borders of several shrubs and sub-shrubs of various colours, fashioned in different manners, as compartments, foliage, embroideries (''passements''), moresques, [[arabesque]]s, [[grotesque]]s, [[guilloche]]s, rosettes, sunbursts (''gloires''), escutcheons, coats-of-arms, monograms and emblems (''devises'')"
—''Traité du iardinage selon les raisons de la nature et de l’art'', pp 81–82 (quoted by Laird)

By the 1630s, elaborate ''parterres de broderie'' appeared at [[Wilton House]], so magnificent that they were engraved— the only trace of them that remains. ''Parterres de pelouse'' or ''parterres de gazon'' refer to cutwork parterres of low-growing herbs like [[camomile]] as much as to the close-sythed grass.

An ''alley of compartiment'' is that which separates the squares of a parterre.

==Revival of the parterre==
Parterre gardening was swept away, beginning in England, by the naturalistic [[English landscape garden]], beginning in the 1720s. Its revival coincided with [[Neo-Renaissance]] architecture, in the nineteenth-century fashion for "carpet bedding" which was realized by mass planting of non-hardy flowering annuals, set out anew at the start of each season and providing the blocks of color that made up the design. Flat surfaces were required, and a raised terrace from which to view the design, and so the parterre was reborn in a transfigured style.

==References==
*{{1728}}

==External links==
*[http://www.doaks.org/Evelyn/evel009.pdf Mark Laird, in "John Evelyn's "Elysium Britannicum" and European Gardening"]: Dumbarton Oaks Colloquium, 1998
*[http://www.parkweb.vic.gov.au/1process_details.cfm?place=64 An Australian Parterre]
*[http://www.kingwoodcenter.org/parterre_garden.html A North American Parterre]

[[Category:Gardening]]

Parterre - Revision history

WikiWorks at 15:25, 9 April 2007