Russell Page – Villa Silvio Pellico
The first thing which strikes me about Villa Silvio Pellico
is the symmetry, which instantly reminded me of a trip to India, where I particularly
enjoyed the Mughal Gardens of the Taj Mahal.
Page was a designer who drew inspiration from historic
English, European and Arabian garden styles, and you can certainly see those
classical inspirations in this design in Northern Italy.
Page commonly used standing water as part of his designs as seen above, however water was not intended to be the focus of his gardens – he believed the real
sculptures were trees and flowers, arranged to reflect the unpredictability of
nature.
Perhaps this goes against the classical inspirations, but in
context of post-war Europe (WWII dealt a huge blow to public and private
gardens across Europe, with most landowners gardens falling into disrepair) his
work falls somewhere between traditional and innovative, between classical and
naturalistic.
A Snap from our trip to the Taj mahal (my brother Ed in the foreground in white t-shirt) which shows the similarities, albeit on a much larger scale, between Page's work and the mughal gardens of the 16th century.
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