“Magnificently beautiful, decorated and profitable gardens.” This is how Johann Peschel formulated the function and perception of gardens semantically between ornament and use in his “Garden-Ordnung” (1597), a polarization frequently encountered in garden theory ca. 1600. This text expresses the rise of elaborate gardening from purely agricultural practices and, at the same time, highlights that ornate garden design is about to be classified as a form of art. The polarization between utility and ornament, and nature and art can, however, only be understood as a system in which a broader spectrum of designs and courtly, urban, religious, and scientific concepts of gardens developed in the early modern period.
International research has long addressed early-modern garden design of Italian villas and French castles, while, aside from individual well-tended grounds such as the Heidelberg Castle Garden (Hortus palatinus), scholarship on contemporary German gardens is comparatively sparse.
The conference, therefore, takes advantage of Philipp Hainhofer’s travel notes and collection books as an opportunity to study German garden design in the early modern period, beginning in the mid-16th century with the growing appreciation and value of gardens and plant culture, and ending with the publication of Joseph Furttenbach’s “Architectura Recreationis” (1640).
We welcome paper topics including (but not limited to):
– Design, layout, planting, and furnishing of courtly residence gardens and urban civil gardens
– Plant culture and plant use
– Trade and exchange of plants and seeds
– Training and professional status of gardeners
– Garden theory
– The relationship between architecture and garden
– Connection with religious practices (e.g. hermitages)
– The garden as a place for scientific meetings
– The reception and the perception and description of gardens (e.g. in travel journals)
– The confrontation of German travelers and gardeners with other European models
– Gardens in the visual arts, literature, or music
Please send proposals (in German or English) for previously unpublished papers with a summary (max. 2,000 characters) and a CV (with details of relevant publications) by September 30, 2021 to:
Hainhofer-Kolloquium-4@t-online.de
Travel, accommodation, and meals will be covered by the organizer. The conference languages are German and English. Doctoral students and early post-doctoral researchers are especially encouraged to apply.
The conference papers are expected to be issued in a subsequent anthology edited by Andreas Tacke, Iris Lauterbach and Michael Wenzel in the “Hainhoferiana” series of the Schwabenakademie Irsee, published by Michael Imhof Verlag (Petersberg) in Spring 2023.
The “Philipp Hainhofer Colloquia” of the Schwabenakademie, Irsee, form the long-term project “Annotated digital edition of the travel and collection writings of Philipp Hainhofer” (https://www.kuenstlersozialgeschichte-trier.de/tak-sharc/philipp-hainhofer/) of the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG). The 4th Philipp Hainhofer Colloquium is organized in cooperation with Prof. Dr. Iris Lauterbach (Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte), Munich.