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Art

English landscape garden and its fabriques

jardin anglais

Thévenin’s English garden is still an unfinished arrangement of bare trees and plaster rubble, yet includes named picturesque features: Fingal’s Cave, a Gothic chapel, a temple and a torrent.

From the book

The Gods Are Athirst

Anatole France · Diotimos Editions · 2026

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Meaning

Phrase.

Thévenin’s English garden is still an unfinished arrangement of bare trees and plaster rubble, yet includes named picturesque features: Fingal’s Cave, a Gothic chapel, a temple and a torrent. These are garden constructions or planned effects, not the actual Scottish cave transported to Paris. The inventory combines different historical and imaginative styles within a fashionable designed landscape.

Places to read

  1. Chapter XXIX, paragraph 17Frenchun jardin anglais: an English garden. The house is introduced through this landscape feature.
  2. Chapter XXIX, paragraph 23Frenchun chaos d’arbres nus et de plâtras: a chaos of bare trees and plaster rubble. The work is visibly unfinished despite its named attractions.