The Garden in Art History: Pre-Raphaelites In the Garden

Gardens have a special place in art history, they are a constant source of inspiration to artists and have continually been explored as an aesthetic and symbolic motif by art historians.

What draws Pre-Raphaelite artists and writers to enclosed gardens? Find out with Dr Dinah Roe, who will take us on a tour of garden pictures and poems by Charles Collins, Christina Rossetti, and William Morris, among others. We will explore to what extent these walled spaces are liberating or confining, natural or artificial, finite or infinite, and think about what causes this nineteenth-century shift towards interiority in both gardens and their representation.

Talks will take place in our Clore Learning Studio on Saturday mornings and will include light refreshments from our cafe. There will be an illustrated talk followed by a Q&A to explore these fascinating subjects together.