Jardins Des Metamorphoses

Historias De Carres > Autumn-Winter 2010

Horses stampede, hitching their manes to the tops of trees. About them, attentively still, like temple keepers, the bear, heron, squirrel, fox or boar watch. Time is suspended. What dream will this garden dramatize? Two Aesthetic universes inspired this carre. In Renaissance Italy the painter Andrea Mantegna designed the plan of his house inscribing a circle within a “carre”-like square. In eighteenth century France, the chateau de Raray saw the surroundings of its courtyard adorned with a strange procession of sculpted animals. This Picardie chateau later became the film set of Jean Cocteau’s “Beauty and the Beast”. As for the oak whose branches entwine the scene, this carre is its homage.