Garden Art in European Culture: The Role of the Garden in Celebrating Religion in Roman, Mediæval, and Muslim Cultures

Julián Huertas

19 February 2015

Professor Musgrave

Garden Art in European History

Blog Post Two:

In the three cultures we have so far studied – Roman, Mediæval and Muslim – how did/does the garden play a role in their respective religions?

In Roman, Mediæval, and Muslim cultures, the garden has played a role in representing and celebrating the respective religions in similar and different ways. In this blog post, I will explore those similarities and differences.

The garden in Roman culture served as a form of religious expression and incorporating of deities into human activities. Within Roman peristyle gardens, many of the fountains and statuary are of deities. Specific deities found in Roman gods would be Pomona and Venus. There were additionally various nymphaea, which were shrines to nymphs of the gardens. Fresco paintings on the side-walls of gardens additionally showed deities relaxing in or performing activities in the gardens themselves.

Mediæval gardens that served religion were primarily monastic, as plebian gardens were utilitarian and royal/noble gardens were primarily orchards, parks, and/or herbers. Many of the mediæval gardens were cloisters, which heavily symbolized the purity of the Garden of Eden. Many of the plants within these gardens symbolized aspects of the Virgin Mary. The white lily represented the virgin’s purity and the red rose symbolized the virgin’s birth of Christ. A smaller garden separate from the cloisters but within the abbey grounds was the hortus conclusus (“enclosed garden”). This was heavily sacred and usually locked. It was a quiet, private spot that was heavily ornamented. These pure, sacred aspects of the garden appealed to the idea of the cloisters as the Garden of Eden.

Muslim gardens represented religion as they directly referenced Islam as a faith. In its text, Qur’an gives a blueprint of the design of a garden. Specifically, there are over one-hundred and twenty references in the Qur’an to the jannah al-firdaws (“gardens of paradise”). In this sense, the garden should be like the “paradise” like that of the afterlife. Specifically in regard to design, there should be a fourfold design (chahar bagh), water channels, a qanat irrigation system, central pool, and plane trees (chenar). The four rills, small narrow water courses, represented the four rivers of life. It stimulated an individual’s own spiritual reflection in relation to self and to god. In this way, the Islamic garden should be an earthly and spiritual paradise.

All three religions similarly have gardens as central components to each respective faith. The differences, however, are that the Roman garden was less symbolic and referenced the many deities, whereas the mediæval gardens were heavily symbolic. Islamic gardens differed in that the sacred text of the Qur’an gave a blueprint for the design yet was similar in that it represented a spiritual paradise.

Here is a for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s blog. Specifically, this link talks about the plant symbolism within Mediæval horti conclusi.