Gardens of Paris Sketchbook
Fabrice Moireau (drawings), Jean-Pierre Le Dantec (author)
Series : Sketchbooks
• Lavish illustrations with careful attention to both architectural and natural detail
• Extensively researched text with historical and architectural insights on Parisian parks by a leading expert
• Numerous captions handwritten by the artist to complement skilfully accomplished sketches and paintings
Blessed with a colourful history and temperate climate, Paris has a rich variety of gardens and a diverse range of flora. The history, aesthetics, design and botanical heritage of Parisian parks are brilliantly displayed in this book, in the watercolours of artist Fabrice Moireau, with a detailed text by Jean Pierre Le Dantec, a leading expert on landscape design. The paintings are accompanied by the artist’s own notes, rendered in his own handwriting.
Gardens of Paris Sketchbook features the contributions made by prominent artists, engineers and designers such as André Le Nôtre and Jean-Pierre Barillet-Descamps. Celebrating the harmony between the picturesque and the geometrical, and the relationship between the demands of modern design and centuries-old layouts, this volume brings alive an aspect of the history and heritage of Paris that will appeal not only to garden-lovers but to all travellers and visitors to one of the most beautiful cities in the world.
Fabrice Moireau
Fabrice Moireau is a seasoned traveller who frequently brings back from his journeys sketchbooks that are valuable cultural and ethnographic records in themselves. He is particularly interested in the world’s architectural heritage, and in plants and gardens. In his watercolour paintings Moireau seeks to illustrate his fascination with streets and cityscapes by subtly playing with light and shadows.
Moireau is a graduate of the renowned École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Appliqués et des Métiers d’Art in Paris.
Jean-Pierre Le Dantec
Jean-Pierre Le Dantec teaches at the École Nationale d’Architecture of Paris-La-Villette, where he heads the “Architecture, Environment and Landscapes” research team. He is the author of numerous works devoted to the art of gardens, among them Reading the French Garden: Story and History, Le Sauvage et le Régulier: Art des jardins et paysagisme en France au vingtième siècle, Splendeur des jardins de Paris and Enfin l’architecture. Jean-Pierre Le Dantec has also put together several radio and television programmes on different aspects of garden and landscape design.
