Good Taste Can Be Vulgar

In her book Sissinghurst: Portrait of a Garden, Jane Brown wrote "Along with the plethora of imitations of the English classical revival style come a whole host of familiar furnishings, which it is well to note that Sissinghurst does not have: it has no long grass-walk flanked by double borders, no pergola, no pools or fountains, no trellis walks or arbors and no topiary twists or triangles. There are no white painted seats, no Versailles tubs, there is no iris rill nor laburnum tunnel, no balustraded terrace nor columned temple, and there are very definitely no Japanese touches or trompe l oeil effects. There are plenty of such things in other gardens. Here most of them would have been dismissed with a snort, and the Sackville insult - bedint - meaning common." When I read this, I was very glad that I don't have a laburnum tunnel or a columned temple in my garden.

It is easy for me to sneer at plastic pink flamingos. I am comfortable smirking at upscale homes with fountains illuminated by colored lights at the center of circular driveways.

What makes me blush is the thought that good taste can be vulgar. According to my dictionary, the definition of the word vulgar is "of or pertaining to the common people, or general public. Belonging to or related to the common people as distinguished from the cultivated or educated".

It is a strange thought that a white garden can be vulgar, but it can. It has always struck me as a bit vulgar to sneer at garden gnomes and plastic pink flamingos, to call them tacky. I sometimes do it, but I always feel ashamed of myself afterwards. It amuses me that the people who call the gardens of their cultural inferiors "tacky" are vulnerable to having their own exquisitely tasteful gardens dismissed as "vulgar".

When Vita Sackville-West designed her white garden at Sissinghurst Castle, she was being daring. She was going against the conventional good taste of the period. What was once rather shocking has become a cliche. White gardens have become the safest and least imaginative of color schemes. People who really have good taste have the confidence to take risks, to challenge conventional good taste.

When taking a real creative risk, you can never be sure how tasteful your creation is, even the greatest artists fail every now and then. I love most of Mozart's operas, but I hate La Cemenze di Tito. I have read that Mozart was not feeling well when he composed that opera, I can believe that. If Mozart could fail, we all can, but if we only do what popular taste accepts as good taste, we run the risk of creating gardens which are tastefully vulgar. It could be said that if we aren't taking any creative risks, we aren't even being creative.

Go To Page: 1 2

Articles in this Topic    Discussions in this Topic