Notan Revisited

I recently saw Matisse's painting The Green Pumpkin at the RISD Museum in Providence, Rhode Island.  I cannot show a picture of the painting; you can google it and see a picture (don't just google "green pumpkin", though.)  The painting is designed with definite bands of color that extend from one edge horizontally to the opposing edge.  Then there is the green pumpkin, close to the middle of the painting, flanked by blocks of the same green.  (Although there is no continuous band of green, the eye interprets the green objects as being in a green band.)  I realized that Matisse had used Notan in the design of this painting even though he did not use extremes of darks and lights.  By using Notan, he helped the viewer discover what was important in the painting, and keep the viewer's eye moving throughout the painting, and not flying off of it.

Color can be used the same way in a garden design as Matisse used it in The Green Pumpkin.   Plants are placed to help keep the viewer's eye moving throughout.

In the bed that I photographed from a roof deck, I have used plants with reddish-purplish foliage placed in the front left armeria maritima rubrifolia (red leafed sea thrift), middle center lysimachia ('firecracker' loosestrife), back right heuchera 'molly bush' (coral bells), and another heuchera to the front right.  My goal is to help people look at this garden so that their eye does not get stuck on one area, and does not wander off to some area outside the garden.  The red foliage plants help lead the eye around and through the garden.  All of the plants are seen because I have helped people make sense of the space.

Next time, I will write about cone of vision.

Generosity in the garden

My Uncle Norm died this past February.  In his 92 years  he learned a lot about generosity, and taught even more.  This trait was always on display in gardens.

There are hundreds of pictures he took of his nieces, nephews, great-nieces and nephews, friends, patients, neighbors, and an occasional stranger, in front of some gorgeous flower or garden.  Being one of the younger children ina family of eight, I was not photographed often.  There wasn't the time or energy.  It wasn't a big deal.  But it was a big deal when there you were, your young face smiling, photographed in front of some gorgeous delphinium.  

Uncle Norm used to show a series of photos that told a lot about him.  The first set of pictures were of his friends from the Cleveland Museum of Art, or the Print Club of Cleveland, in one of his gardens.  The second set was of a woman who was the daughter of one of his longtime patients.  The third and final set was shown to questions of "who are they?"  Uncle Norm replied, with modulated delight "Oh, they were at the Taco Bell across the street and they were admiring my garden."

As I got older, it became a joke that Uncle Norm was really taking pictures of his flowers and wanted people in them for novelty.  Now that I am older, I think that he really loved people, and he loved plants, and he wanted to see them together.

Whenever someone I love comes to visit, I like to take their picture in front of whatever is flowering in my yard.  I try to take pictures of people I don't love, too, just so my small act of generosity will make me a better person.

Next time - more Notan 

Notan

Notan is a Japanese design concept that deals with lights and darks in a composition.  A good balance of these leads to a pleasing composition.  The trick is how to achieve it.

I learned about Notan last year when I started creating pen and ink illustrations for a webcomic/graphic novel that I am working on.  It occurred to me that I could use the concept in my garden.

Areas of lights and darks should be almost equal.  Also, lights should flow into other lights, and darks should flow into other darks.  Think of a stream with boulders in it.  The water flows around the boulders.  Both boulders and water make a patttern of light and dark.

Notan can help make a garden design work well, especially in the early spring, when a lot of perennials have not popped ujp through the soil yet.  I am lazy in the fall.  I intned to plant spring flowering bulbs, but something more important - like watching a football game or going apple picking - always comes up.  My gardens always have bare patches in the spring.  These will disappear in a few weeks, because the perennials will emerge.  Still, I want the garden to look good 12 months of the year.

This corner bed has a big bare patch in the spring, because one of my favorite plants, the brilliant orange asclepias tuberosa (butterfly weed) doesn't pop through the soil until late April. 

This diagram is a bird-s eye view of the bed.    It suggests a possible solution (there are many, depending on my energy level).  I can make the plants that flank the wedge-shaped empty spot line up more severely so that it is very obvious that the empty, or dark area, is indeed a wedge shape.

I took this picture today - mid-May, to show how the garden is growing.  One of the asclepias tuberosa plants needs to be moved to the left so that the three plants line up into a triangle shape.  (There is some risk involved, as asclepias tuberosa do not like to be moved.)    I can then add a few annuals, perhaps heliotrope (deep purple flowers, perfect for a sunny spot), on either side of the most forward asclepias tuberosa.

Next post I will write about generosity in the garden.