Book Description
A distinguished chronicle of the Persian garden that explores its profound spiritual, historical, and virtually unacknowledged influence on the development of Western garden design in the 21st century
Gardens of Persia demonstrates world-renowned author Penelope Hobhouse's rare ability to combine meticulous research and a practical knowledge of gardens and plants with a love of garden history and travel. By telling the story of the development of gardens throughout the Persian culture's 5,000-year-old history, she imparts a passionate view of the Persian paradise garden as a model for today's gardeners.
Buildings, water, and plants combine to give the gardens of Persia a beautiful spiritual quality that has served to inspire garden design across time and diverse cultures. Indeed, Ms. Hobhouse begins with the oldest living garden, Pasargadae, created by Cyrus the Great in 550 BC. It represented paradise on earth and spawned other gardens to be seen as settings for sacred contemplation and spiritual nourishment. In later centuries, these gardens evolved further around the world as representations for romance, power, prestige, and symbols of the afterlife.
Gardens of Persia is beautifully illustrated with Jerry Harpur's specially commissioned photographs of Persian gardens as well as with similarly inspired ones from around the world, and with lovely images of sumptuous carpets and Persian miniatures.
Customer Reviews:
Truly a book for all readers!.......2005-06-30
This book comes close to being all things to all readers. And if you don't feel like reading, you can simply enjoy the generous spread of illustrations -- maps, drawings and diagrams, beautifully reproduced Persian miniatures and above all the superb photographs by Jerry Harpur, a longtime specialist in capturing gardens and plants all over the world on film.
This is much more than a picture book: the name guarantees a literate and enlightening read. This book is not about gardening in the usual sense of how to grow certain plants in particular places at specific seasons: it covers the role of gardens in the social history of thousands of years of culture. But if you have a bare terrace or balcony, you will still find more than a little incidental inspiration in these pages. This book is a vast work of research, but it remains on a human level.
Armchair travelers will enjoy the rare opportunity to learn more about what is perhaps one of today's least known cultural regions. Even philosophers will find food for thought in some of the quotations from Persian and Western writers: "The real gardens and flowers are within, they are in man's heart, not outside." (Rumi The Masnavi Book IV)
BEAUTIFUL!!!.......2005-06-30
Once again Penelope Hobhouse combines her peerless practical knowledge of plants with a passion for research and a love of garden history. In Gardens of Persia, she follows their evolution, from attempts to embody a vision of paradise to contemporary expressions of wealth and power. In all these spaces, with their distinctive template combining subtropical plants, buildings, and water, she finds that initial and powerful spiritual impulse always present, even where the imperatives of the world seem, on the surface, to be the motivation. The book is a beautiful production, with 150 specially commissioned photographs by Jerry Harpur, and a wealth of archival images and plans.
Disappointment.......2004-06-04
What a disappointment. Beautiful pictures of archaeological sites, architectural elements, desert scenery; pretty Persian miniatures, nice diagrams and drawings BUT where are the gardens? Oh, maybe after page 100 or so we start to see photos that actually look like the garden was the main focus of the picture. That's what I get for ordering books sight unseen, huh. I gave it a 2 because it was nice for what it was and because I lived in Iran in the late 70s and there were some nostalgic moments in it for me.
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- In the name of Iran
- A good surprise
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Palaces and Gardens of Persia
Yves Porter
Manufacturer: Flammarion
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The Art of the Islamic Garden
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The Persian Garden: Ecohoes of Paradise
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Gardens of Persia
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Gardens, Landscape, and Vision in the Palaces of Islamic Spain
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Iran the Beautiful
ASIN: 2080112570
Release Date: 2004-01-17 |
Book Description
In both decoration and design, the grand buildings and gardens of traditional Persia consistently refer to "paradise." The very word itself refers to a sense of heavenly perfection, derived from an early Iranian term for "the Shah's royal hunting grounds."
The fine touches of heaven that lie behind the colorful tiled façades of palace pavilions and mosques still shine in this richly illustrated and scholarly work. Enter gardens with intricate fountains and majestic ponds fed by water that is sourced from underground aqueducts dating to the 6th century. From ancient mirrored shrines of Shiraz and geometric gardens of Kashan to the ornate domes of Ispahan, here is a glorious photographic timeline drawn in water, brick, and ceramic ornamentation along the 3,000 years of the region's architecture.
Customer Reviews:
In the name of Iran.......2007-05-11
This book contains colorfull images of castles, gardens, public baths, mosques and pictures from ancitent time of Iran to present time. Also, there were some pictures which they showed Iranian people are walking in parks because Iranian people ejnoy a lot walking in park, and spend time some where close by tree and enjoy shade and away from hot sun.
This is a good book to have.
A good surprise.......2005-08-19
When I bought this book I expected only to see a book with nice pictures of Persian palaces and gardens. But for my surprise, this book contained a series of interesting information about the origins and reasons for the construction of gardens and other buildings since ancient times. It was interesting to know how Persians combined a tower to capture air that, after passing a small lake, became fresh and cool air. This is the predecessor of air conditioning. Other types of amazing buildings, such as the early freezer, are also explained in the book. An excellent purchase for those who - like me - like to understand how people in ancient times lived.
Customer Reviews:
A Curious Knight.......2005-01-02
Well, I imagine those of you considering buying this book have more than an inkling of what you're in for, unless, like a previous reviewer, you are upset by scholarly, editorial quibbles: Does anyone really care so much if the editor altered amphibium to amphibian or not? Trust me, if you adore verbal arcana, the editor (viz. Robbins) has left enough unexplicated for you to go running to your unabridged OED time and time again. If his notes and explanations are short, all the more reason to rejoice in such need for recourse into other resources to delve into the verbal rich and strange.
That being said, methinks the best, most philosophic and topical section of this compilation is the second part of Religio Medici, the first part of which is, for the most part, involved with theological abstrusities none too cogent to the modern reader due to the discoveries of modern science among other reasons. The second part, by contrast, abounds with speculation and contemplation cogent and arresting to all ages.
As for Hydriotaphia and The Garden of Cyrus, let's just say that if differing forms of burial in antiquity and the reasons pertaining thereto pique your interest, or if you're obsessed that the number five in the form as its displayed on the side of a die may hold the key to the cosmos, as another reviewer has felicitously noted, you will be amply rewarded. Otherwise, well, you may find yourself dozing at parts.
Aside from the delight in outdated and antiquated wording and a unique style of writing that I haven't seen duplicated anywhere, even in the works of Browne's most illustrious contemporaries, the best reason to buy this book is for insights like those below interlarded throughout the text:
Life itself is but the shadow of death, and souls departed but the shadows of the living. Al things fall under this name: the sun itself is but the dark simulacrum. And light but the shadow of God.
We term sleep a death, and yet it is waking that kills us, and destroys those spirits that are the house of life.
For the world, I count it, not an inn, but an hospital, and a place not to live in but to die in.
United souls are not satisfied with embraces, but desire to be truly each other, which being impossible, their desires are infinite, and must proceed without a possibility of satisfaction.
If there be any among those common objects of hatred I do scorn and laugh at, it is that great enemy of reason, virtue, and religion, the multitude-that numerous piece of monstrosity, which, taken asunder, seem men, and the reasonable creatures of God; but confused together, make but one great beast, and a monstrosity..
Thus we are men, and, we know not how, there is something in us than can be without us, and will be after us; though it is strange that it hath no history, what it was before us, nor can tell how it entered us.
Just a sampling of apothegms in this delightful compilation.-Four stars though: At times, one simply wants to shout "Oh what tosh!" to all Browne's ramblings anent his beloved "quincunx".
Great writer, awful edition (Robin Robbins, Oxford UP).......2003-06-20
I'm leaving aside considerations of Browne's importance as a writer. There are plenty of appraisals of him on the net, and if you've found this page, you probably already know what you're looking for.
While this edition may be adequate for the casual reader, it's entirely unsuitable as a scholarly edition:
1) The editor has translated nearly all of Browne's notes without giving them in the original.
2) He has moved these notes from the margin to the foot of the page without bothering to number them. The reader will often find himself finishing a page, discovering a footnote and trying to backtrack to figure out where it fit in. Confusing to say the least, especially because Robbins intermingles his own commentary with Browne's, indicating the latter's with the initial B.
3) Protracted discussions of the text are confined to an appendix (and by protracted, I mean three or four sentences at most). They might as well be incorporated into the body of the text as footnotes, since he only provides six of these for Hydriotaphia, eight for the Garden of Cyrus.
4) The editor has modernized the spelling, despite Browne's well known preference for certain archaic forms. While updating the orthography is helpful (substituing 'j' for 'i,' 'v' for 'u,' etc.), Browne's occasionally unorthodox spelling should hardly present a problem to anyone with half a brain, and if you can't figure out that 'sceleton' means 'skeleton,' you probably won't understand why 'Man is a great and true amphibium.'
5) And obviously, modernizing the spelling vitiates the impact of Hydriotaphia, Browne's meditation on mutability, language and identity, and the anonymity of the grave.
6) Lastly, for such a shoddy edition, it's a pricey, slender paperback. The editor could at least have included Letter to a Friend or a selection from Christian Morals to round it out.
Unfortunately, there are no popular editions of Browne's work available at this time, and it's doubtful whether any shall be in the near future. Search out something used, and avoid this one if you can.
What song the Syrens sang; meditations on time and eternity.......2001-03-24
Sir Thomas Browne's works from the first half of the seventeenth century remain worthy of your attention. He is an essayist, akin in spirit to his rough contemporary Montaigne. He was yet another prose stylist of those fine days of the Stuart period, when the sun of English prose approached its zenith, only to be eclipsed by the English cultivation of melancholia.
The -Hydriotaphia-, or Urn Burial, is perhaps the most celebrated of these works. Its nominal occasion is the discovery and opening of an ancient gravesite, about which Browne, a physician, writes with better archaeological method than most of his antiquarian contemporaries. But this discovery is merely the occasion for what turns into an extended meditation on the funerary monuments of antiquity, and of the great themes of time, eternity, and the frailty of memory and fame.
The -Religio Medici- is a meditation, quite humane and somewhat skeptical especially given his period, on the prevailing religious doctrines and teachings of his day. It is a prayer for peace in an age that was marked by a great deal of religious strife and contention; not surprisingly, it gave doubts to most of the warring parties as to Browne's orthodoxy. Despite its generally skeptical tenor, it seems Browne himself was prepared to accept alchemy, astrology, and witchcraft.
The -Garden of Cyrus- is the most curious of these works. Its nominal subject is the "quincunx," the arrangement of five units like the fives on dice, and its use in ancient horticulture. But it treats this slight subject with such various learning, finding quincunxes everywhere on earth and in the heavens, so that when it's over it seems that understanding the quincunx might be the key to the secrets of the universe.
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The Rose Garden of Persia
Louisa Stuart Costello
Manufacturer: Kessinger Publishing, LLC
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0766191508 |
Book Description
1913. Louisa Stuart Costello was an Irish travel writer, novelist, poet, and painter and her work was admired by Sir Walter Scott, King Louis-Phillipe, Thomas Moore, and Charles Dickens. The Rose Garden of Persia features selections on and from the classical Persian literature.
Book Description
Behold a stunning world, made mostly of water, where clothing changes people's behavior and time itself can be worn and discarded like cloth. Witness a father who takes his two boys out to sea, in flight from some menace at home, thus launching their adventures in a strange and dangerous territory. Artist Matthew Ritchie's striking images blend scientific diagramming with vivid, colorful renderings of the apocalypse, while writer Ben Marcus's cold prose plumbs the inner workings of two boys caught out at sea with a father whose costumes grow increasingly menacing. In this collaborative work, Ritchie's and Marcus's shared obsessions of mythology, physics, and ancient texts have produced a conjunction of text and image in which people themselves are merely costumes for the darker needs that drive them.
Customer Reviews:
By the excellent Mr. Marcus.......2003-03-11
Those who read The Age of Wire and String and Notable American Women won't be disappointed. One again, Marcus demonstrates his unusual skill: describing strange situations & relationships with a slightly biased language. As it is said p.19: "There is a portion of time that my own language cannot remark." Exploring this peculiar portion with Ben Marcus is a challenging experience.
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Worth: Father of Haute Couture (Fashion Designers)
Diana De Marly
Manufacturer: Holmes & Meier Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0841912424 |
Book Description
This includes tables of the Classical Orders, measured drawings of monuments, and practical instruction on classical design. 304 illustrations.
Customer Reviews:
Wonderfully Enlightening!.......2003-01-03
This book is a must have for any serious student of classical
architecture in America! Beautifully detailed illustrations
throughout.
Book Description
This deluxe hardcover collects Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 9: Skin Deep and Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 10: New Avengers, plus extras. In Skin Deep, Peter Parker must confront a former classmate who - like himself - was granted amazing powers during a science experiment gone awry. But why does he blame Peter for the laboratory mishap, and just how far will he take his quest for vengeance? And in New Avengers, Trump Tower has nothing on Spider-Man! Spinning out of the pages of New Avengers, you won't believe what the fickle hand of fate has in store for Peter Parker, Mary Jane and Aunt May! But even as Peter and his family adjust to their great new pad and cool new clique, the hordes of Hydra make a final push to take over the United States! Will the web-head and the New Avengers stop the revitalized Hydra from bringing America to its knees? And if so, at what cost? Collects Amazing Spider-Man #515-524.
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Guns and Boyhood in America: A Memoir of Growing Up in the 50s (Poets on Poetry)
Jonathan Holden
Manufacturer: University of Michigan Press
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Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0472096435 |
Book Description
In this honest and compelling collection of autobiographical essays, poet Jonathan Holden writes about sex, baseball, and summer camp; about parents who keep their distance; about the mistakes of adolescence; and about the national romance with guns. Most of all, however, he writes about the realities of having a twin brother who is gay and the excruciating pains he took to avoid being mistaken "for a fairy." Illustrating his points with his own poems, Holden creates a book that is not only a critique of homophobia (his gay problem and ours) but a wider questioning of American cultural values.
We live in Sparta rather than Athens, Holden says, where the terror of homosexuality compels boys to lead distorted lives. Striking a low-keyed but insistent note of social criticism against the militarized, anti-poetic place where we live--one that so often seems to be a great, crass high school with overindulged appetites for sex and aggression, instead of a place where learning or the inner life can honestly thrive--Holden questions the ethos of this place where most boys consider such arts as dance or piano too dangerous to practice. His challenge to the American machismo ethic and its aesthetic correlative uncovers fascinating questions about the gender assumptions we have regarding sports and the arts.
In Guns and Boyhood in America, Jonathan Holden succeeds in creating an eloquent rendering of the dramas and dilemmas of an American boyhood in prose and poetry, while allowing us to overhear a finely worded lover's quarrel with America.
Jonathan Holden is the author of poetry collections including Against Paradise, American Gothic, and most recently The Sublime, recipient of the 1995 Vassar Miller Prize in Poetry. Currently he is University Distinguished Professor and Poet-in-Residence, Kansas State University.
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Reflections: From Norway Til Now
Olav Klepp
Manufacturer: 1st Books Library
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Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 1403320071 |
Books:
- Great American Houses and Their Architectural Styles
- Historic Houses of the Hudson River Valley
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History of Interior Design and Furniture: From Ancient Egypt to Nineteenth-Century Europe
- Hit by a Farm: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Barn
- Holy Terrors: Gargoyles on Medieval Buildings
- Instructional-Design Theories and Models: A New Paradigm of Instructional Theory, Vol. 2 (Instructional Design Theories & Models)
- Italian Villas and Their Gardens (Classical America Series in Art and Architecture)
- Japan Modern: New Ideas for Contemporary Living
- Jessie Willcox Smith: American Illustrator
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Palaces and Gardens of Persia
Majorelle: A Moroccan Oasis (Small Books of Great Gardens)
