ANATOMY OF A GARDEN
A family collection
30/05/2025 - 06/09/2025
The occasion for our new exhibition is the start of the redevelopment of the Adornes garden. Although it has undergone profound changes over the years, which we are sadly ill-informed about, the garden has always been an essential part of the Adornes estate. For proof of this, just look at the map by Marcus Gerards (1562), which clearly shows the garden. The Ferraris map (1777) also shows groves of fruit trees and horticultural crops.
Gardens have always reflected social status, and Anselm Adornes, who was certainly aware of this, must have designed his garden with particular care. One part was a pleasure garden, the other a kitchen garden. We know from a 16th century source that there were many fruit trees and a vineyard, as well as thorny hedges and rose bushes. From the 17th to the early 19th century, gardeners rented land to grow a wide range of fruit and vegetables: berries, apricots, peaches, quinces, plums, cherries, onions, asparagus, cauliflower, beans, celery and leeks.
We will not try to reproduce what has disappeared. But we do want to create a garden that is inspired by the values that prevail in the Adornes estate: the religious character, the family, authenticity, scientific curiosity, the integration of modernity but also the search for a calm and peaceful place. At this stage, we are taking a modest step, with the transformation of the small garden behind the almshouses into a green cloister.
In this exhibition, you will look in vain for a coherence of style or for a chronology between the works presented. Anatomy of a Garden is an exhibition that is to be discovered like a garden made up of a succession of contrasting landscapes that reveal themselves one after the other. Much like in a Chinese garden, each step leads you from surprise to surprise, towards new worlds, new perspectives, hidden treasures. The exhibition's sole ambition is to take you on an exploration of the very essence of the garden. What is a garden? Which elements should or may it contain? There are all kinds, from the most elaborate to the most natural, from open garden to hortus conclusus. There are big ones and tiny ones. What they all share is human intervention, shaping nature to create a work of art. They often feature water, architectural elements, statues, animals, light and shade, and of course plants (though some Japanese gardens contain only rocks and other minerals of various sizes). Gardens sometimes require titanic works and may cost a fortune.
The garden is made by man, for the man who walks in it. A place to impress or entertain, a place of escape or a haven for meditation and contemplation. A symbol of spirituality and purity, of peace and connection with the divine, the garden wants to gather and preserve what is most beautiful and admirable in nature. This is probably why the garden is universally associated with paradise. The word paradise, derived from the Persian pairidaeza, then from pardez in Hebrew, and finally from paradeisos in Greek, first refers to enclosed places for animals and more generally to places planted with crops and trees and containing a wide variety of natural flora and fauna. The concepts of garden and paradise merge, so to speak. In the Bible and the Torah, as a place of perfection and harmony with nature, the Garden of Eden reflected paradise where humanity was in direct relationship with God. In the Koran too, paradise is described as gardens brimming with varied fruit and rivers flowing, symbolising abundance and serenity. They are places of delight, miles away from the harshness of the desert.
The future of the Adornes garden still holds many unknowns, but our dearest wish is that it should be a haven of peace, a place of wonder and meditation, but also a place of intelligent water management and biodiversity conservation.
The exhibition features some thirty works from the family collections, combined with loans from artist-photographer Gilles Lorin.
