Enfilade

From Compton Verney:

‘Capability’ Brown and the Landscapes of Middle England
Compton Verney, Warwickshire, 25 June — 2 October 2011

Curated by Steven Parissien and Tim Mowl

Set in its own ‘Capability’ Brown landscape, Compton Verney is the ideal location for the first-ever exhibition about internationally-renowned landscape designer Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown (1716-83). This exhibition brings the man and his genius to life through a series of case studies of ‘Capability’ Brown landscapes from the Midlands. It looks at how Brown designed his natural, neoclassical arcadias; how his landscapes were designed to work in practice; how Brown responded to technological advances in shooting and carriage-making; and how he addressed the enormous task of moving tons of earth and creating hills, vales and lakes in an age before tractors or JCBs.

The focus is on famous ‘Capability’ Brown landscapes in the Midlands region, including Croome, Charlecote Park, Combe Abbey and of course Compton Verney itself. It will showcase the very latest research on the design and use of Georgian landscapes with paintings, maps, accounts, historic guns, manuals and specially-
commissioned photography.

The exhibition is curated by Compton Verney’s Director, Georgian expert Dr Steven Parissien, and Professor Tim Mowl, Director of the Landscape and Garden History Centre at the University of Bristol and founding author of Redcliffe Press’s county guides to the Historic Gardens of Britain.

A 27-page gallery guide is available as a PDF file here»

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Laura Mayer, Capability Brown and the English Landscape Garden (Oxford: Shire Publications, 2011), 64 pages, ISBN: 9780747810490, $12.95.

Laura Mayer presents a concise and colourful introduction to Brown and other leading landscape gardeners of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, such as William Kent, Richard Payne Knight and Humphry Repton. She explores how competing ideas in garden design were shaped both by changes in prevailing fashion and by the innovations of particular designers, and why Brown’s designs are currently considered to be the epitome of landscape gardening in this period.

Laura Mayer is studying for a Ph.D. in eighteenth-century gardens at the university of Bristol under the supervision of Professor Timothy Mowl. She won the 2010 Garden History Society essay prize and is working, with Mowl, on ‘The Historic Gardens of England: Northumberland’.