This course is a broad overview of the traditions of gardens, landscape architecture and depictions of the landscape which will illustrate changing concepts of nature over time. We will study the history of landscape architecture and gardening, as well as nature used in works of art, surveying major trends in the design and depiction of gardens from ancient to modern timesBwestern Europe and North America as well as China and Japan. There is no prerequisite

Changing interpretations of nature in the creation and depiction of gardens gives interesting insights into human attitudes about their place in nature. Symbolism attached to gardens and individual plants demonstrates the relationship between nature and religion. How gardens reflect changing concepts of nature and human interaction with it from the Garden of Eden to Japanese Zen gardens to the gardens of Versailles.