CATHERINE MACDONALD was hopelessly lost. She had been wandering around the National Gallery, zigzagging from room to room, so absorbed in the artworks that she no longer knew where she was. 'I had to go and find a map to get myself out,' she laughs.
Her confusion was more than understandable, however. Dr MacDonald, the principal landscape designer at Landform Consultants, had been touring the National Gallery for more than three hours and hadn't merely been admiring the paintings. She had been studying them closely to draw inspiration for her latest project: a commission by jeweller Boodles to design a garden for the 2024 RHS Chelsea Flower Show that would mark the National Gallery's 200th anniversary.
Dr MacDonald decided early on that she didn't simply want to bring one painting alone to life as a garden. Instead, she harvested ideas and elements from several artworks that struck a chord with her, from a varied selection of artists encompassing the obvious (the master of garden painting, Claude Monet), the unexpected (Gustav Klimt) and the relatively obscure (Finnish painter Akseli Gallen-Kallela). In short, she says, her garden is conceived 'almost like another room in the gallery'.
Green shoots
Claude Monet's The Water-Lily Pond, 1899
Denne historien er fra May 15, 2024-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Denne historien er fra May 15, 2024-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Happiness in small things
Putting life into perspective and forces of nature in farming
Colour vision
In an eye-baffling arrangement of geometric shapes, a sinister-looking clown and a little girl, Test Card F is one of television’s most enduring images, says Rob Crossan
'Without fever there is no creation'
Three of the top 10 operas performed worldwide are by the emotionally volatile Italian composer Giacomo Puccini, who died a century ago. Henrietta Bredin explains how his colourful life influenced his melodramatic plot lines
The colour revolution
Toxic, dull or fast-fading pigments had long made it tricky for artists to paint verdant scenes, but the 19th century ushered in a viridescent explosion of waterlili
Bullace for you
The distinction between plums, damsons and bullaces is sweetly subtle, boiling down to flavour and aesthetics, but don’t eat the stones, warns John Wright
Lights, camera, action!
Three remarkable country houses, two of which have links to the film industry, the other the setting for a top-class croquet tournament, are anything but ordinary
I was on fire for you, where did you go?
In Iceland, a land with no monks or monkeys, our correspondent attempts to master the art of fishing light’ for Salmo salar, by stroking the creases and dimples of the Midfjardara river like the features of a loved one
Bravery bevond belief
A teenager on his gap year who saved a boy and his father from being savaged by a crocodile is one of a host of heroic acts celebrated in a book to mark the 250th anniversary of the Royal Humane Society, says its author Rupert Uloth
Let's get to the bottom of this
Discovering a well on your property can be viewed as a blessing or a curse, but all's well that ends well, says Deborah Nicholls-Lee, as she examines the benefits of a personal water supply
Sing on, sweet bird
An essential component of our emotional relationship with the landscape, the mellifluous song of a thrush shapes the very foundation of human happiness, notes Mark Cocker, as he takes a closer look at this diverse family of birds
