Go to Home Page
                                               Intro Mary Garden

Honoring Mary With God's Artistry

John S. Stokes Jr.


Catholic Art Quarterly, Christmas, 1952

       .
 (In this season of garden planning and
 seed catalogs, Mr. Stokes reminds us
 that a garden can be a fertile
 Christian apostolate and a special
 means of honoring Our Lady.  The
 project, called Mary's Gardens, was
 begun to bring men closer to the earth
 where they can observe the blight of
 Adam's curse each autumn and the
 forecast of our common glorious
 resurrection each spring.  Here Mr.
 Stokes describes the purpose and plan
 of such a garden.)



Let us dedicate our garden to Mary!

     The final cause of the garden will be the greater glory of
God, the honor of Our Lady, the service of our neighbor, and our
sanctification - as distinct from the usual secular goal of
delightful garden appearance, effect or "pictures" intended only
for the pleasure of the observer.

     The material cause of the garden will consist entirely or
predominantly of flowers and plants associated with Our Lady in
ages-old popular religious tradition.

     And we, the efficient cause, the garden stewards, will
undertake our labor prayerfully, zealously and with a willingness
to make sacrifices - instead of with a view only to the most
pleasing effect with the least work.

     As a whole, and in its parts, Our Lady's Garden is to convey
the profound sense of love and devotion which centuries ago
prompted Christian peoples to associate certain flowers with her:
both in the exalted manner in which the Madonna Lily (Lilium
candidum) was conceived to symbolize the purity of her body and
soul after her Assumption into heaven; and also in the intimacy
with which she was recalled in the familiar, every-day aspects of
her life, as attested by flowers such as Our Lady's Thimble
(Campanula rotundifolia) and Our Lady's Cushion (Armeria
maritima).

     Just as Mary is the way to Christ, so, too, is the beauty of
the garden to lead souls to contemplation of God's beauty.  To
this end we are to employ in the design of Our Lady's garden the
principles of beauty set forth as norms in the composition of
works of art by the theologians of the Church: namely, integrity,
proportion and clarity.

Integrity

     The first means to garden integrity is the selection and the
enclosure of the garden site.  The site itself must meet plant
cultural requirements of sun and moisture.  A suitable enclosure
can be developed from walls, fences, hedges, trees, shrubs, etc.
It should give the garden a definite, distinct, self-contained
form in relation to its surroundings; yet at the same time it is
to permit and enhance the view of the garden from our own and our
neighbors' windows, doors and porches.  The enclosure is also to
serve as a frame or background for the garden plants and blooms.

     A second means to garden integrity is the selection of major
and minor axes which establish the over-all divisions and parts of
the garden space within which the bed and planting arrangements
are subsequently to be worked out.  Such axes are usually defined
at each end by suitable objects, such as a doorway, gate or
terrace of the house on the one hand, and garden furniture, pools,
statuary, trees or shrubs on the other.

     A third means to garden integrity is the establishment of a
focal point or center of interest in relation to which the garden
beds and plants are to be ordered.  Such a focal point can be
either terminal - at the end of a major axis; or central - at the
intersection of two axes.  A statue or shrine of Our Lady is a
fitting terminal focal point.  On the other hand, a pool or
fountain or statue which can be viewed favorably from all sides is
suitable for a central as well as a terminal location.

     In the garden, the focal point is the center and essence of
its integrity and being - as is the heart in the body, the hearth
in the home, the altar in the church, and the Church in the world.
Before original sin, the First Garden was comprised of the Central
Tree and the Four Rivers, with no enclosure or boundary;
afterwards it was enclosed by the fiery circle of flaming swords
of the Cherubim to protect its treasures from fallen and
unredeemed man.  In Our Lady's garden, Mary, Mediatrix of all
grace, is the center and "Tree of Life."  Her garden, too, is a
"Garden Enclosed," but the enclosing circle is broken by the
entrance or gate - through which redeemed man is invited to
proceed to the Center; and through which he goes out to the world,
restoring all things in Christ.

Proportion

     While the establishment of garden integrity is largely an
ordering of line and space in terms of a given site, the
composition of a proportioned, harmonious and fit bed and planting
arrangement within the basic plan requires an intimate knowledge
of the characteristics of the individual flowers of Our Lady.

     Many flowers were associated with Our Lady because, taken
individually as found in field, they recalled her attributes,
mysteries or possessions.  In the garden, therefore, they are
preferably placed in smaller beds which give best display to the
individual plants.  Also, many are the more dainty, minute,
delicate and "feminine" varieties, and for this reason, too, they
are best suited to smaller beds.  Hence, from a consideration of
Our Lady's flowers we establish the specification that the
individual garden beds should be as small as is consistent with
simplicity and the proportion of the basic design.

     Given the scale of the beds, the steward-artist is then free
to compose their forms and relationships within the organization
of the enclosure and axes.  The first consideration here is that
they maintain garden integrity by giving proper emphasis and
support to the focal point and axes.  A second is that due
attention be given to "circulation": the path or paths which the
visitor may follow as he or she enters, moves through and lingers
in the garden.  A third is that the individual beds be given
harmonious variation, rhythm and sequence - not to delight the
senses with variety and contrast, but to show forth the
many-faceted proportion and harmony of Creation, which mirror the
infinite harmony, justice, concord, peace and beauty of God.

     Blossom color, too, should support the overall garden
composition.  Here cultural knowledge of each of Our Lady's
flowers is particularly important, as we must deal not only with
color, size and form, but also with season, duration and sequence
of bloom.  Unless it is feasible to make plant substitutions
throughout the year at different seasons of bloom (which should be
given consideration in respect to the planting at the focal
point), the fact must be accepted that most varieties of Our
Lady's flowers, as of flowers generally, bloom for only two to
eight weeks of the year, in their respective seasons. In composing
blossom color, therefore, the garden must be envisaged and planned
month by month through spring, summer and fall - with reliance
upon the basic design and bed arrangement for continuity of
integrity and harmony, and utilization of blooms for successive
and changing harmonious accents within this continuity.

Clarity

Integrity and proportion are achieved by the definite and
harmonious ordering of garden enclosure, axes, focal point, beds,
plants and blooms; clarity is of a different order.  Clarity is
not so much the result of our sense of being, form, order,
fitness, proportion, balance and harmony as it is a participation
in the brilliance, illumination, light or splendor of the divine
essence, mystery or innermost being of things.  Although sensible
integrity, harmony and brilliance may delight the senses, clarity
is the sublime intelligibility of beauty which gives light and joy
to the soul.  Beauty is "the splendor of form shining on the
proportioned parts of matter."

	Clarity, therefore, is not the fruit of rules or techniques,
but of vision.  It comes of loving and prayerful contemplation of
God, God's Creation and compositions of Creation's beauty in works
of art - as well as from talent and the development of the
artistic virtues and habits.  The lily, the rose, the carnation
and others of Our Lady's flowers are themselves exemplars from the
hand of the Divine Artist - which leave us humbled.

	It may take years or a lifetime of composition and
re-composition to acquire the vision, and the intimate knowledge
of plants and blooms which can result in a garden masterpiece.
Yet by gaining understanding of the basic principles of integrity
proportion and clarity, and by devotedly applying them to the
arrangement of plants in the garden, the loving steward can, in
the first few years, impart to a Mary Garden the quality of
reverence worthy of Our Blessed Lady, the Mystical Rose, in whose
name it is undertaken.

	But it is most important of all that the work be undertaken
prayerfully.  To this end the Flowers of Our Lady which compose
the garden mosaic, offer a harvest of loving and devotional
meanings - which for a time were permitted to drop into obscurity
- but now they reveal themselves anew in full vigor, offering
souls nourishment which seems to be enriched in value by having
been enveloped in the silence of the centuries.


Reprinted with permission.