The transposed meaning of the garden

Abstract

The most fertile disputes about the paradigmatic nature of the garden have dated from the 18th century. The majority of the researchers and theoreticians in garden art have stated that there is no ideal pattern of the garden, but a series of complex transpositions, phenomenon which allows us to affirm that the garden may be looked upon as a semiotic object. The Chinese garden, as well as the Japanese one, have been present in our cultural context as a result of a transposition. The transpositions chain helps us to understand the conception of the English garden which is very dependent on the transposition of the French landscape painting and the description of the Chinese gardens. The English garden has resulted from a double transposition: the concomitant transposition of the French painting from the 18th century and of the Chinese garden (we mean the Chinese garden not taken in se, but as it was described in the journals and journey tales beginning with the end of the 17th century).The Italian garden, transposed in French painting, which in turn has been transposed in English garden, represents an example of “text in text”, very complex from a semiotical point of view. Even if the patterns presented in our research have never been met in pure condition and are liable to transposition and interpretation, becoming elements of an intertextuality difficult to control, it seems that there are also constant structures deeply rooted in an emotional profoundness which irradiates to universal.