Capability's Eden

Diana Saville

For a landscape designer it should be the ultimate challenge - to create the Garden of Eden as described in the Bible. Not suprisingly, perhaps, Robert Boyd allows himself to become a little obsessed with the project. Whilst pursuing an artistic vision, he is undone by his own human frailties. Like Adam and Eve before him, he must leave his paradise, a sadder and disillusioned man. An enthralling read and something of a modern-day fable.

Extract

'It is a question, always, always of finding the right subjects, the right ingredients, the right expression, blended as I've said out of the art of the possible. Texture, colour, volume, movement. You were in search of a golden age. Don't you see? How everything comes together? The golden pink of the flamingos in the southern quarter, the golden russet of the fallow deer to the west. Against the green of the grass and the trees. Think of the shapes, can you? The birds tall and very static, but the deer fleeting.'

The force of the picture in my head was an inebriation. In essence I was asking for a vision to be exchanged and shared. In practice I knew I was asking for money for its realisation. The endless battle between the artist and the patron which the artist must win.

Parallels