What does a sculpture do to a garden? What does a garden do to a sculpture?

Under the scientific direction of Emmanuelle Héran, Chief Curator, Head of Garden Collections, Musée du Louvre – Domaine national du Louvre et des Tuileries

This study day is part of the 22nd edition of the Rendez-vous aux jardins, taking place on Friday June 6, Saturday June 7 and Sunday June 8, 2025, under the theme “Stone gardens - garden stones”.

While closely linked since Antiquity, the relationship between sculpture and gardens was rekindled during the Renaissance. Auguste Rodin himself pondered this connection, as Paul Gsell recounts in L’Art: “Statues are usually placed in gardens to embellish them. For Rodin, gardens are here to adorn the statues. For him, Nature remains the supreme mistress, an infinite perfection.”

And yet, works tracing back the history of gardens often give little to no consideration to the statuary that inhabits them. The sculptural programs of royal gardens, such as those at Versailles or the Granja de San Ildefonso in Spain, have only recently been analyzed. Conversely, sculpture scholars rarely reflect on the unique setting granted by gardens, or on what a sculpture, in turn, can bring to a garden. Yet, a garden is not a museum; it offers to three-dimensional works neither the neutrality of a "white cube" nor even the illusion of a "green cube" beneath an open sky. While there does exist a “museography” for gardens, it is scarcely taught, neither to curators overseeing an “open-air sculpture museum” nor to landscape architects and garden designers.

In the 20th century, sculpture parks, created specifically for this purpose—such as Middelheim in Antwerp and Kröller-Müller in Otterlo—focused more on presenting a “living history of sculpture under construction¹”. Iconographic objectives may have been replaced by the production of a historical-stylistic narrative, without soliciting the help of a landscape architect. However, a return to iconographic coherence does seem to be taking place in response to the public's presumed expectations. Evolution also came from bold artists like Ian Hamilton Finlay, who subtly distorted the concept of a program, or Isamu Noguchi, who blurred the lines between garden and sculpture.

Bringing together scholars, curators, art historians specializing in gardens or sculptures, as well as park and garden managers, this study day aims to question the usefulness and relevance of three-dimensional works in a garden context. In other words, what does a sculpture do to a garden? And what does a garden do to a sculpture?

¹Louis Gevart, La Sculpture et la terre : histoire artistique et sociale du jardin de sculpture en Europe (1901-1968), thèse de doctorat en histoire de l’art, sous la direction de Thierry Dufrêne, Paris, Université Paris Nanterre, 2017.

Research Committee

• Amélie Simier, Chief Curator, Director, Musée Rodin
• Emmanuelle Héran, Chief Curator, Head of Garden Collections, Musée du Louvre - Domaine national du Louvre et des Tuileries
• Véronique Mattiussi, Head of the Research Department, Musée Rodin
• Franck Joubin, Researcher and Conference Coordinator, Musée Rodin

Programme

Visuel : Edvard Munch (1863-1944), Le Penseur de Rodin dans le parc du Dr Max Linde à Lübeck, vers 1907, huile sur toile, H. 143 ; L. 98 cm, Paris, musée Rodin, achat en 1981© musée Rodin - photo Jean de Calan