Gardens are refuges, ideal and protected places, sometimes enclosed, limited, and artificial, occasionally natural and wild. An artist's private view of a garden, his garden, will show it to be a special place, a locus amoenus, or else he selects a single plant from the garden, and depicts it, with botanical precision, in all of its beauty. The spectrum ranges from the medieval Garden of Eden and detailed studies by Albrecht D?rer and his contemporaries, to Peter Paul Rubens's courtly, gallant games in a royal park, Van Gogh's gnarled trees in the courtyard of a sanatorium, and a video installation by Fischli/Weiss. More than mere images of gardens, these works are always landscapes of the soul. This opulently illustrated, impressively comprehensive volume features close to four hundred pages of blooming dreams.nnArtists featured (selection):nMax Beckmann, Arnold B?cklin, Lovis Corinth, Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot, Jacques-Louis David, Max Ernst, Jean-Honor? Fragonard, Lucien Freud, Caspar David Friedrich, Vincent van Gogh, Mathis Gothart-Nithart, Paul Klee, Max Liebermann, August Macke, ?douard Manet, Henri Matisse, Claude Monet, Berthe Morisot, Edward Munch, Emil Nolde, Martin Schongauer, Peter Paul Rubens , Pierre Auguste Renoir, Antoine Watteau