North America is not a land mass one immediately associates with gardens. China, Japan, Britain and France, perhaps, lay claim to the mind's strongest landscape associations.
QUIET BEAUTY: The Japanese Gardens of North America, by Kendall H. Brown, photographs by David M. Cobb. Tuttle Publishing, 2013, 176 pp., $34.95 (hardcover)
This book represents a major step in resetting our perceptions. The title covers three distinct phases in the evolution of these gardens in North America: the age of world fairs, sister city gardens and the latter, more sophisticated works that reflect a greater knowledge of the subject and a willingness to adapt and co-opt ideas rather than imitate. Interestingly, it is in this latter phase that we see more authentic gardens, landscapes closer in spirit and form to those found in Japan.
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