The Past Steps Out

As long as human beings have cultivated gardens for pleasure, there has been a desire to enhance nature thorough ornamentation. Fountains adorn gardens in Etruscan tomb paintings; Cleopatra had a famous garden on her island temple refuge. Surely, the the hanging gardens of Babylon were equally augmented by sculpture.

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The infulences of Classical themes have been re-interpreted in the South Carolina Botanical Garden, with its' nature -based sculpture program. It takes the ancient themes into a new dimension.

The emphasis of this program is the incorporation of natural and native materials into the landscape, highlighting the art as a reflection of the aesthetic use of our existing resources.

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Sculptor, Patrick Dougherty

This delightful piece is based on the 16th century martyroruim- a Tempietto, or small temple- by Renaissance architect Bruno Donato. "When I discovered that the height to width ratio of the Tempietto's central barrel is identical to the proprtions of many of the mature shrubs in the Botanical Garden, I wondered if Bramante had really discovered the secret of his buildings' pleasing proportions by walking in his own Roman garden," said Dougherty .

Made of local tree limbs and branches, his sculpture opens the past in itno the future in a way that is refreshing and inspring. While few of us have the space in our gardens for something like this, I doubt that anyone fails to appreciate it.

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