While both occupy the same spaces, the landowner and laborer of 18th-century Europe live in separate social and economic spheres. When embedded in a literal landscape, both parties act out the parts of a human occupier and the naturalized human presence, much like the subject and staffage in a painting or the characters within a toile de Jouy pattern (Image 1). As seen in this 18th-century copperplate print, a literal separation of these two social classes exist in the island-like vignettes. Farmers dig in the gardens, their fingers entwined with the leaves of the plants, and separate from that, two lords swing and play in the trees. These images can hold figures as accessorized characters and subjects with relative autonomy present in the same painting or bolt of fabric, and toile de Jouy prints, in particular, are emblematic of the relationships in the context of this essay.
The illustrations from these prints take inspiration from scenes that would be seen on an estate in the mid-1700s. Other than leisurely walks and an abundance of shady trees, other extensions sometimes exist on a wealthy property owner's land, depending on the eccentricity of the estate in question. In particular, on some estates, was the occurrence of the ornamental farm or ferme ornée. Both Toile de Jouy and the ferme ornée were created simultaneously throughout Europe (France and England alike). These self-sustaining, faux villages were for the wealthy to privatize an area of land and then manage it into an amateur farm. A mocking gesture of the enclosure movement, to take the agriculturalists needed to run a farm and position them into a relationship of service to the landowner.
Illustrators depicted many farm scenes in the history of toile de Jouy prints. The English had already perfected the etching-like accuracy of the copperplate print with fabric design. And with the influence of Rococo and chinoiserie, this technology is what fueled the Oberkampf Factory of Jouy-en-Josas, France, to create the toile de Jouy fabrics that were popularized by the then queen, Marie Antoinette. These prints were also made when Antoinette would have been spending durations at her own ferme ornée, Hameau de la Reine (Image 2). Both the farm and the fabric exist as a type of propaganda in that they both accessorize the laborer and act as theatrical representations of class building. The following essay attempts to connect examples of the ornamental farm, toile de Jouy, and gardens in the context of labor propaganda.
A few of the ferme ornée referenced ranged from British to French and from 1690 to 1820. The English examples, A la Ronde, The Leasowes, and Farnborough Hall, reflect the influences of ‘farmer’ George III, the then king of England, and the transition to privatization through the enclosure act, which made it possible to create these vast estates. These examples, and particularly that of the German example, Dessau-Wörlitz Garden Realm (1), act as romanticization and propaganda in connection with labor as it was the most significant commercial farm of its kind. Most ornamental farms function in a slightly commercial sense in that the excess of what crops aren't used by the landowner are sold at the market. Hameau de la Reine, the famous French farm built in 1783, was commissioned by Marie Antoinette. While it is not the most practical example of a farm in that it did not practice commercial farming, it functioned as a hatchery and dairy for the queen and a place of leisure for her and her milieu. This example of a toile created in the French Oberkampf factory illustrates the site of the garden or park as a place of leisure for the aristocracy or wealthy property owner (Image 4). Here we see fishing, lounging, and play amongst the well-dressed characters; two, in particular, are protected by a great awning, a gesture to their wealth and assumed delicacy. The creation of the fabrics and gardens also tells the history of French-Chinese relations and that of western imperialism.
The ferme ornée is attributed to the British landscaper Stephen Switzer and remembered through his book, The Nobleman, the Gentleman and the Gardener’s Recreation. “By mixing the useful and profitable parts of gardening with the pleasurable in the interior parts of my designs and paddocks, obscures enclosures, etc. in the outward, my designs are thereby vastly enlarged in both profit and pleasure may be agreeably mixed together.” (2) Another way of understanding them is thinking of the ferme ornée as a mixture of a pleasure garden, farmlands/orchards, and kitchen gardens all combined into one. These gardens are just slightly pre-Brownian and pre-neoclassicism, both of which aspire to represent Arcadia. (3)
Many English examples of ornamental gardens lay within the suburbs of Birmingham and London. An important note is that the geography of these examples is placed outside cities and not isolated in the rural landscape. The city exists as a place of entertainment or business for the wealthy suburbanite but is too dangerous, small, or dirty to build one’s home. At the same time, the rural landscape is considered both too isolated and too wild. In this toile image titled Au Loup!, we see the stereotypes of farmers and those who occupy rural spaces (Image 5). Several characters have bare feet, including a rogue child, a wolf who steals livestock from a distressed couple, and a woman milking a goat– placed at its ass level with no distinguishable face—a rural tale of chaos that is meant to represent the daily activities of the rural landscape. Other examples like this exist such as the toile image of Les Plaisirs des Quatre Saisons (Image 6). Here we see farmers frolicking, happy within their labor, all four seasons of the year. These fantasy images create not only stereotypes and assumptions of class but accessorize the laborer as literal prints that proliferate aristocratic homes. This propaganda naturalizes the laborer in the literal landscape of the aristocrat. These illustrations from toile de Jouy fabrics act the same way as the working laborer-character does in the ornamental garden.
One of the first examples of the English ornamental garden created in the 1690s, Farnborough Hall in Warwickshire, was designed by the English landscape architect Sanderson Miller, with a 5.5-mile walking path, pastures, orchards, and gardens. In Devon outside Exmouth, A la Ronde was first created in the 1730s by cousins Mary and Jane Parminter. This ferme ornée is more akin to the cottage ornée, as seen in the photo of the round home on the property (Image 7). Here we see a round cottage, unassuming in size, surrounded by vast, rolling fields. Tiered landscaping wraps around this tiny cottage in which it stands sturdy from the masonry exemplary of its style. The assorted size of the rock selection adds to its quaintness in its attempt to imitate rural architecture. A la Ronde is an exception in geography in that it lies in a small hamlet off the southern coast of England. However, it still exists as an essential example of an ornamental landscape in that its isolation defines and amplifies the arcadian transformation when one visits the home. Then in 1740, the Leasowes was created by the poet William Shenstone in the village of Halesowen. This castle and property were specifically designed to combine profit and pleasure through the act of gardening and commodifying the products of the acreage, similar to the earlier German example. Outside the farm itself, Shenstone is said to have placed poems at different points of the circuit walk to both admire the landscape and be set in a particular mood upon reading the poetry. (4)
In the case of all three farms, each landowner existed as a property manager that directed aspects of farm life, from how crops were managed to how the animals were tended. If this were too much bother, a manager or overseer would have been tasked with the duty. As seen in this toile example, Les Travaux de la Manufacture, we see a well-dressed figure with a child who is being taught the aspects of the property, how the printing of fabric occurs, the role of fields, and other elements of the estate and fabric production (Image 8). As a character in the print, the man acts as both teacher and overseer in his relationship with the other figures present in the illustrations. The array of agricultural and industrial technology present also positions the production of this fabric in a fascinating historical context with advancements in plows, threshers, etc. These later examples of a ferme ornée are precursors to European industrialism. It's an even further exaggerated irony as farmers, who are the subjects of these prints, are pulled into factories to make these designs for the wealthy property owners whose homes they would adorn.
Other British examples of the ferme ornée include Shughborough Estate, Woburn Farm, and Barrells Hall. This Enlightenment-inspired and imperialist outlook on education and the farm's hierarchy (or factory) is similar to other European garden designs and plantation designs in the American colonies. In the microcosm of the garden and ferme ornée, the property owner creates the dynamics of a Pantocrator. In this performance, the landscaping and architecture direct how bodies occupy and exist within the space. Because these properties live in vignettes scattered around the suburbs, the visuality, or lack-there-of in this case, is essential to the psychological transformation of the ornamental farm. Having multiple farms managed differently in close proximity to one another would disrupt the 'magic' of the shift.
'Farmer' King George III (reign 1760-1820) was nicknamed as such because of his connection to the people, despite what could quaintly be justified by his influence on ornamental gardens and British landscaping. His reign existed through part of the British Agricultural Revolution, which began in the 1650s through the 1870s. He also studied agriculture and had an affinity for his own ornamental garden that inspired the series of the British examples preceding. Outside the British models, Marie Antoinette's Hameau de la Reine, constructed in 1783, was built as an 'escape' for the then queen. As mentioned before, Hameau de la Reine was quite interesting in that it had less purpose than the ornamental farms of England, Ireland, and Germany. There was no commercial farming that occurred here. It existed purely ornamental as its name. It's also an intriguing creation in that it reflects some of the Chinese-French relations at the time and the connections to Chinese pleasure gardens and paintings. Due to increased trade with China, China's philosophy, religion, and art made their way to Paris. A shared love of the oneness of humans and nature existed as a bridge between the two cultures. It became an explosive catalyst in the Western, particularly French Rococo, and the realm of art and literature. (5) Not only were the subjects of man in nature popularized, but the asymmetrical, swinging styles embedded their way into the compositions of paintings and illustrations. Other than subjects of farming life and the aristocracy, chinoiserie made its way on the fabrics in the same printing houses.
However, Marie Antoinette’s farm resists much of this extravagant styling. Instead, it takes inspiration from rural architecture. Hameau de la Reine itself is several buildings, including a dairy, private reception quarters for the queen, and gardens that functioned for the palace, which is within walking distance (Image 3). Each of these buildings surrounds an artificial lake and are created from so much exposed timber and thatching that much of what remains today has been replaced and goes through continual maintenance. Meant only to exist for the queen's lifetime and not much care for the future of its structural integrity, Hameau de la Reine is now a seasonal attraction at Versailles with still-functional gardening plots.
Because of their proximity to the land and their naturalized presence through artmaking, it could be argued that the subjecthood of the farmer is popularized as a type of 'noble savage' in toile de Jouy prints. It is important to mention that the tenants of these properties were the laborers of the property. For example, in Hameau de la Reine, both the head gardener and the head of the guard stayed in this section of Versailles. Just like the naturalized presence of the farmer in the landscape, it's important to understand that the laborer of the property is seen on the property at all times. This method was seen mainly in plantations, especially in the southern American colonies. The properties had many of the same things, fields, kitchen gardens, pastures, walks, orchards, etc. However, American ornamental farms were different in that the placement of slave quarters was essential and for it to be placed prominently on the property. Writer Joseph Addison's advice was to "make a pretty landscape with one own's possessions… or a most desirable abode where profit and pleasure may be as well combined." (6) President Thomas Jefferson would have taken this to heart as Addison was one of his favorite writers. It is also demonstrated in his property’s layout (Image 9) (Image 10). In addition, like Marie Antoinette's toile de Jouy, there is a specific necessity for ‘happy peasants’ laboring in the fields or property. In all of these dynamics, the ferme ornée itself becomes a tableau for the property owner.
The ferme ornée exists more authentically in the minds of the 18th-century landowner if it has the correct combination of relative isolation and visibility of labor. The ferme ornée must exist as more than a hollow capitalist venture for this illusion to exist. Through the combination of naturalization through spiritual means and Romanticism, it's easier to direct the performance of the farm and estate. For example, the history of gardens and farming leads to the history of the monastery cloister/garden, both in its representation and labor. The relationship to the garden and cloister in the monastery is connected to labor. Work in the garden sustained the monks' dietary needs, and extra food was sold at the market to support the day-to-day livelihood of their monastery. Other monastic orders grew lavender and other money-making crops outside food as well. For the cloisters, the gardens here represent the garden of Eden. In order for this place to become 'activated,' the act of walking must occur for the body to be transported to Eden. This practice of circumambulation is what makes the garden Eden. Moreover, the monastery is isolated from the outside world, although usually within a few miles of a city or town.
Other than monastic parallels and moving toward the 1800s, many of these estates hang onto Browinian ideals with the spiritual goal of one's property to represent Arcadia. In tandem with the ornamental farm, this Romantic landscaping looks like a Turner or Cole painting depicting harmony with nature (Image 11)(Image 12). In both examples, we see the use of staffage to, first, make sure the composition of the landscape (and its grandeur) are not competing and, second, to further assert human importance in its existence. As if nature cannot exist independently without humans to marvel at it. The Turner painting, in particular, is interesting in its Biblical associations. The figures in After the Rain, like Noah, stare up at a rainbow as if God has just struck a covenant with the people below.
However, the western caveat for nature, no matter the point in this string of examples, is that humans are separate from the earth and not part of it. This is where the appropriation of Chinese philosophy and art becomes consumed in Western ideologies. Specifically, human harmony with, and separate from, nature. In contrast to the paintings mentioned previously where the figures are quite small, projectable, and amongst nature as a punctuation, not its essence. The western idea of humans in relation to nature is more like that of the Peaceable Kingdom (Image 13), where humans exist amongst flora and fauna but remain superior to it– king.
All the spaces mentioned in this essay are seen as lost, utopian, or both– prelapsarian Eden, ornamental farms, estates, and a romantic, Arcadian landscape. Both sites are activated upon human presence (It is important to note here that laborers on the land are seen as part of the landscape in this case). So, when the essay says 'human presence,' it means the presence of a voyeur or witness, usually the landowner. In the case of the ornamental farm, the human company recognizes itself as separate from the landscape but in harmony with it. Walking through the serpentine pathways and recognizing the beauty of the landscape is what 'activates' the 'space.' Both of these words, and the situation as a whole, predicate private property. As mentioned above, circumambulation is what activates cloister gardens. These Edenic spaces are only seen in the meditation of the human presence. This labor is an exchange between human existence and the divine.
As someone skeptical of greenwashing and labor in a contemporary sense, I wonder in what ways we can apply these past relationships to what is seen today. Prisoners persuaded into gardening for self-sustaining reasons have caused industries that now rely on prison labor to create products. (7) The history of this process is documented all the way back to the beginning of prisons which lay within the history of monastic garden spaces. The labor in this space, and the exchange that occurs, is a justification for early prison labor in fieldwork– and not just fieldwork, but labor in general. Like the phrase "the devil finds work for idle hands," those in control find ways and justifications to orient others toward themselves. The naturalization of these exchanges is what I find most similar to the ferme ornée, just as the enclosure movement led to workers' naturalized presence in factories and privatized land areas. I also find the spiritual justifications for their creation and existence striking, whether it be Eden, the Peaceable Kingdom, Arcadia, or a lost utopia, the religious relationships to nature, and how the curation of it is deemed necessary. The expression of these fragmented relationships is best represented by the toile de Jouy print. While never fully realized in most ferme ornée landscapes, fantasy and illusion can exist in the printed illustrations.
Images
Image 1) Title Unknown, 17th century https://laurelberninteriors.com/2021/03/21/toile-de-jouy-is-it-offensive-or-something-else/
Image 2) Hameau de la Reine, Versailles, France https://en.chateauversailles.fr/sites/default/files/styles/reseaux_sociaux/public/visuels_principaux/lieux/cthomas_garnier_dsf1192.jpg?itok=29vDEG8v
Image 3) Hameau de la Reine, Versailles, France
https://www.chateauversailles.fr/decouvrir/domaine/domaine-trianon/hameau-reine#histoire-du-lieu
Image 4) Le Parc du Chateau, Oberkamf Factory, Jouy-en-Josas, France, 1783, AIC
https://www.artic.edu/artworks/31503/le-parc-du-chateau-furnishing-fabric
Image 5) Au Loup!, Oberkampf Factory, Jouy-en-Josas, France, 1783, AIC
https://www.artic.edu/artworks/60689/au-loup-furnishing-fabric
Image 6) Les Plaisirs des Quatre Saisons (Pleasures of the Four Seasons), Oberkampf Factory, Jouy-en-Josas, France, 1785, AIC
https://www.artic.edu/artworks/67063/les-plaisirs-des-quatre-saisons-pleasures-of-the-four-seasons-furnishing-fabric
Image 7) A la Ronde, Exeter, England - https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/a-la-ronde
Image 8) Les Travaux de la Manufacture (The activities of the factory), Oberkampf Factory, Jouy-en-Josas, France, 1783, AIC
https://www.artic.edu/artworks/79541/les-travaux-de-la-manufacture-the-activities-of-the-factory-furnishing-fabric
Image 9) Mulberry Road presumed slave quarters
Image 10) Mulberry Row in proximity to Jefferson’s home
Image 11) Distant View of Niagara Falls, 1830, Thomas Cole, AIC https://www.artic.edu/artworks/90048/distant-view-of-niagara-falls
Image 12) An April Shower: A View from Binsey Ferry Near Oxford, Looking Towards Port Meadow and Godstow, 1842, JMW Turner, AIC
https://www.artic.edu/artworks/183043/an-april-shower-a-view-from-binsey-ferry-near-oxford-looking-towards-port-meadow-and-godstow
Image 13) The Peaceable Kingdom, Edward Hicks, 1820, AIC
End Notes
1) When it comes to understanding the role of the commercial farm on the ferme ornée, the German example of Dessau-Wörlitz is probably the most prolific. Built in the 1770s - 1800, this example of an ornamental farm held more than enough fields and orchards to supply the families living on the estate and quickly moved to profit from its abundance. “Nowhere else in Germany or Europe … such an all-embracing and extensive programme of landscape reform into being, particularly one so deeply rooted in philosophical and educational theory. With the unique density of its landscape of monuments, the Garden Kingdom of Dessau-Wörlitz is an expression of the enlightened outlook of the court at Dessau, in which the landscape became the idealized world of its day.” - “Garden Realm”, UNESCO
2) Switzer, “The Nobleman, the Gentleman and the Gardener’s Recreation”
3) Chesters-Thompson, “The man-made Landscapes of the Midlands,”
4) “The Leasowes, Halesowen,” Black Country Geopark
5) Kronegger, “Chinese Gardens: The Relation of Man to Nature in Seventeenth-Century French Culture”
6) “Ferme ornée/Ornamental farm,” National Gallery of Art
7) Butz, Leah, “Prison Labor is Remarkably Common Within the Food System,” Or states that are more willing to put those incarcerated in harm’s way, like California trying alternative means of fighting fires through prison labor. (Fathi, David, “Prisoners Are Getting Paid $1.45 a Day to Fight the California Wildfires”)
Bibliography
Butz, Leah, “Prison Labor is Remarkably Common Within the Food System,” Hunter College New York City Food Policy Center, 2021, https://www.nycfoodpolicy.org/prison-labor-is-remarkably-common-within-the-food-system/
Chesters-Thompson, Simon, “The man-made Landscapes of the Midlands,” National Trust, https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/features/the-man-made-landscapes-of-the-midlands
Fathi, David, “Prisoners Are Getting Paid $1.45 a Day to Fight the California Wildfires,” ACLU, 2018, https://www.aclu.org/blog/prisoners-rights/prisoners-are-getting-paid-145-day-fight-california-wildfires
“Ferme ornée/Ornamental farm,” National Gallery of Art, https://heald.nga.gov/mediawiki/index.php/Ferme_orn%C3%A9e/Ornamental_farm
“Garden Kingdom of Dessau-Wörlitz,” Unesco World Heritage Convention, https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/534/
Kronegger, Marlies, Chinese Gardens: The Relation of Man to Nature in Seventeenth-Century French Culture, Kalhousie French Studies, Vol. 43, Summer 1998, Pg. 79, https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/40837236.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3Ab881e9bba83d51adcff394afd09c6776&ab_segments=&origin=&acceptTC=1
“The Leasowes, Halesowen,” Black Country Geopark, https://blackcountrygeopark.dudley.gov.uk/sites-to-see/the-leasowes-halesowen/
Switzer, Stephen, The Nobleman, Gentleman, and The Gardener’s Recreation, B. Barker & C. King, ed. 1, 1715
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