Today, we visited two unique gardens, designed to entrance, intrigue, and bewilder. The first was the Sacred Wood, the product of Pier Francesco Orsini’s grief for his deceased wife and child. It features, among many other grotesque and astonishing works of sculpture, a gaping orc’s mouth (pictured above).
The second garden, Giardino dei Tarocchi, I interpret as the total creative release of Niki de Saint Phalle's tormented mind. Inspired by Orsini’s Sacred Grove, her garden features a similar figure with a gaping mouth (pictured below).
The similarity in the style of expression of strong emotions exhibited by these two artists intrigued me. One artist broken down by grief caused by forces out of his control created a strange garden to inspire reflection; a journey to salvation, from Hell to Heaven, the broken self made whole and perfect. The other, tormented internally by nightmares and personal demons, released them into creation. The garden, with its fragmented mirrors on almost every surface, creates an environment in which it feels like the self is being broken down into pieces too scattered to be examined, as if its purpose is to be a vehicle of escapism. Both places inspired introspection: the first pushed me to a feeling of considering myself in relation to the whole. What did I want? What would my impact be on the world? The second ground me down more and more finely as I was increasingly fragmented in broken mirrors until I couldn’t see myself. Who did I think I was, and who was I, really? What was I made of at my core? To be moved so by the products of creativity of other human beings was a bit uncomfortable, but profound and refreshing. If you could walk through another’s mind, what would you discover about your own?
[This post was written by Camille Goodwyn, a sophomore studying Environmental Health Science]