Garden Retreat in Asia and Europe

Yue Zhuang is Senior Lecturer in Chinese, Art History and Visual Culture at the University of Exeter, UK.Alasdair Forbes is a writer and gardener who teaches a course on gardens as places of meaning at the University of Exeter, UK.Michael Charlesworth is Professor of Art History at the University of Texas at Austin, USA.

• List of IllustrationsList of Contributors’ BiographiesAcknowledgementsIntroduction – Michael Charlesworth (University of Texas, USA), Alasdair Forbes, and Yue Zhuang (both University of Exeter, UK)I The Garden Retreat and Theatricality 1. Garden, a Refuge and a Stage: Death of a Garden Owner and its Moonlit Theatricality in Seventeenth-century China – Lin Zhu (Southeast University, China)2. Daguerre’s ‘Natural Diorama’: Landscape Design and Picturesque Retreat in 19th century Bry-sur-Marne – Kasie Alt (Georgia Southern University, USA)II Dwelling, Garden, and the Poetic Image 3. Three Scenes from Wen Hengshan’s Album of Poems and Paintings of the Garden of Artless Administration, 1533 – Hongde Wu (Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China) and Stanislaus Fung (Harvard University, USA)4. The Gardens of Omar Khayyam: Poetic Botany between Khurasan and Kathmandu – Iván Szántó (Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE), Hungary)5. Finding Solace in Garden Memories: Osvald Sirén’s Life during World War II – Minna Törmä (University of Glasgow, UK)III Moral Virtues and Poetic Virtues 6. Garden Practices, ‘Quiet’ Virtues, and Understanding – David Cooper (Durham University, UK)7. Gardens of Refuge, Innocence, and Toil – Ian Kidd (University of Nottingham, UK)8. Withdrawal and Bewilderment – Alasdair Forbes (University of Exeter, UK)IV The Garden Retreat and Mortality 9. Pope’s Arcadia: Death Re-enchanted – Yue Zhuang (University of Exeter, UK)10. The Garden at Prospect Cottage as Derek Jarman's Defence – Michael Charlesworth (University of Texas, USA)An Afterword on Withdrawal – Alasdair Forbes (University of Exeter, UK)Index

Each of the essays in this timely and luminous collection requires that we rethink our understanding of the restorative mystery and wonder of the garden, and how their numinous poise serves to generate new ways of inhabiting our fragmented world.