Gardens of Paris Sketchbook

by Fabrice Moireau

Blessed with a colourful history and temperate climate, Paris has a rich variety of gardens and a diverse range of flora. The history, aesthetics, design and botanical heritage of Parisian parks are brilliantly displayed in this book, in the watercolours

Genres: Nonfiction, Art

96 pages, Hardcover

First published February 15, 2007

Reviews

[Mallory · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is not my typical review, as you might consider this “merely” a coffee table book. However after reading it in its entirety since my thoughtful boyfriend gifted it to me on our last trip to Paris, I think it’s worthy of discussion.

Everyone knows Paris is beautiful, and everyone admires its many gardens. This book captures not only some of their beauty through lovely watercolors by Fabrice Moireau, but also provides fascinating historical context about how and why these gardens were designed. After reading this, I’ve a great deal more admiration for the urban planners, landscapers, and gardeners who conceived, designed, created and maintain these living pieces of art inside Paris, as well as a few more places to visit next time I go. I’ve never been to Paris in the spring and now I want to.

Jean-Pierre le Dantec categorizes gardens into somewhat distinct types and explains how the culture and events of the times (sometimes both of their creation and their restoration) led them to be designed in a particular style. If you like either urban planning or admiring foliage, you’ll find it interesting. If, like me, you enjoy both, you’ll love reading this.

The book itself is well made, the paper is high quality and the watercolors are printed beautifully and in great detail. If you just want to flip through and admire it as a coffee table book you can certainly enjoy it just the same.

[AainaA-Ridtz · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is in the smaller things that make a country wanted - like love, it is in the smaller things that bind both beloved, and lover together. It takes hardship, passion, education, approach, greater thinking and insights, sacrifices, the overlooking yet appreciation of trivial trinkets, and past-times... And the many other creative and practicable things that make a city the beloved, and its tourists the lovers.

For a city to be loved, like a person to be loved, it takes a willful heart to learn not only of the culture, but of the people. One can never come to appraise or abhor a nation well, unless one has lived, breathed, became a part of its 'system' in thoughts and mindset, in planning and undertaking the allegiance that endears onto a being as much as one would do to oneself.