Garden sculpture in site design

Garden sculpture: photo

Garden sculpture has long been and remains the most expressive means of creating accents in landscape design. That is why her passion for gardeners and designers around the world remains unchanged.

The choice of garden sculpture at the moment has practically no boundaries: antique statues, classic garden gnomes, animals, fairy-tale characters, sundials, lanterns, mills, gazebos are only its most popular representatives. Decorative sculptural objects contribute to the creation of the effect of completeness of the composition, fill it with meaning, and emphasize the stylistic direction. And, of course, like no other decor element, they reflect the character and interests of their owners, making the garden a continuation of their style and rhythm of life, giving it individual features.

The use of sculptural images in the design of gardens dates back to Antiquity and has a respectable age - more than two millennia. And during this time, interest in garden sculpture not only did not fade away, but intensified and expanded the list of objects related to it.

Meanwhile, one should not forget that an incorrectly made accent threatens to destroy the compositional integrity and can turn a harmonious picture into a tasteless set of disparate elements. That is why garden sculpture is dangerous - its expressive qualities are so strong that its choice is sometimes not an easy task. How to choose the right sculptural items of garden decor and what to be guided by when placing them in the garden will be discussed in this article.

Garden sculpture: how to choose

Garden sculpture: photo

Garden sculpture: useful video

Before you start choosing a garden sculpture for a summer residence, you should study the layout of your garden and understand how many such accents are required to complete the composition and whether they are needed at all. The main rule for choosing a garden sculpture: there should not be too much of it. Sculptural images should not be conspicuous and intrusive. It is important to place them so that only one sculptural decorative element corresponds to each vantage point. No matter how you like this or that statuette, close proximity to another accent object will make them a useless and unprincipled set of things. This statement does not apply to symmetrically located sculptures that are part of one group - such compositions are intended to emphasize the geometric basis of the design and harmonize the ensemble.

When choosing objects of garden sculpture, you should observe their compliance with the general style concept. They should merge into the overall picture and repeat the main motives with their form, material, color scheme.

Style directions

Of course, it is fundamentally wrong to say that each style has its own strictly defined set of sculptural images that are completely unsuitable for other design solutions. One and the same type of garden sculpture will organically fit into a different setting, depending on the style foundations. In general, the whole variety of sculptural decor items can be divided into three groups:

• To the first group Ornamental garden sculpture includes classical sculpture that came from the ancient era. It is represented by statues of ancient Greek and Roman gods and goddesses, ceramic containers such as amphorae, Roman fountains. As a rule, such a sculpture is made of natural or artificial stone.The main styles of landscape design, which are characterized by sculptural classics, are regular styles with their geometric shapes and some landscape directions that involve the use of topiary elements.
• Second group includes a variety of ethnic sculpture with striking features that allow you to immediately determine its belonging to any era or country. These include Mediterranean statues and ceramic containers, Asian pagodas, lanterns, figurines of gods and spirits, English stone lions, Dutch mills. The choice of a country-specific style thus determines the choice of characteristic sculptural accessories.
• To the third group includes decorative garden sculptures of a pastoral character. Their use, as a rule, is associated with landscape styles such as country, and should create an atmosphere of sentimental lightness, playfulness. Typical representatives of pastoral sculpture are famous gnomes, ceramic animals, household utensils, miniature houses and castles.

In addition to conformity to the stylistic direction, the proportionality of the chosen sculptural object to the overall composition plays an important role. Avoid proportional inconsistencies between the house, flower beds, ponds and sculpture crowning the composition. Pedestals, stairs, stands, and the principle of multi-tiered object placement will help to adjust the height of the image.

Garden sculpture: how to place

Compared to the problem of choosing a garden sculpture, the question of its placement in the garden seems relatively simple. If we are talking about a regular style, then the geometry of the paths and platforms itself creates the places on which a statue or other object can be installed. As a rule, such points are intersections of axial and side paths, central parts of flower beds, labyrinths of hedges and ridges, far ends of alleys and paths, corners of lawns and playgrounds.

For landscape styles, there is a different principle for placing garden sculptures: the most suitable for this are areas that primarily attract attention during a panoramic view. At the same time, unlike the rather self-sufficient statues of regular gardens, the sculpture of landscape styles should, to a certain extent, merge with the surrounding environment, be part of a single whole. To emphasize the fusion with nature, it is often decorated with climbing plants, the pedestal is hidden with the help of shrubs or tall grass.

An important point is the care of the garden sculpture for the dacha:

• firstly, preference should be given to materials that are resistant to temperature changes that can withstand the effects of corrosion and moisture, or to additionally process more delicate materials;
• secondly, it is necessary to securely fix the stands and pedestals;
• thirdly, direct contact of the garden sculpture with the soil should be avoided.

All the necessary information about garden sculpture protection means must be found out in advance in order to create the necessary conditions for its use.

Garden sculpture for a summer residence: photo