Overview

This edited volume explores the ways in which the object biography or object itinerary approach could be adapted to frame research on animate objects, such as plants and gardens in transcultural contexts. By treating these animate elements as ‘objects’ in the manner of artefacts and looking at their individual histories, we gain a more nuanced sense of how data accumulated, how new knowledge developed through printed texts and specimen collections, and how the creators of gardens or landscapes formed their collections. Chapters explore the shifts in meanings when objects from diverse origins meet in new cultural contexts where their new owners create assemblages based on their perception of the world. The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, material culture, and cultural geography.

Full Product Details

Author:   Minna Törmä (University of Glasgow)
Publisher:   Taylor & Francis Ltd
Imprint:   Routledge
ISBN:  

9781032846491

ISBN 10:   1032846496
Pages:   182
Publication Date:   30 September 2025
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Tertiary & Higher Education
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Forthcoming
Availability:   Not yet available  
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Table of Contents

List of Illustrations List of Contributors Chapter 1 Introduction Minna Törmä Part I Chapter 2 Seventeenth-century Dutch ventures in the global rhubarb trade Anne Gerritsen Chapter 3 Breadfruit itineraries Sarah Easterby-Smith Chapter 4 Rootless Orchids could travel: Transplanting a Chinese plant iconography in the early modern world Yizhou Wang Part II Chapter 5 Concordia Discors: The ‘natural’ style in Alexander Pope’s grotto – from a ‘nymphaeum’ to a ‘mine’ Yue Zhuang Chapter 6 Questioning ‘Japaneseness’ in the Broughton House Garden Minna Törmä Chapter 7 East Asian inspired gardens in Sweden: Expressions of material culture and cultural encounters Catharina Nolin Chapter 8 Monet’s Pond in Tokyo: Global circulation of waterscape aesthetics and the politics of ecological curation Ewa Machotka and Takehiro Watanabe Bibliography Index

Reviews

""Rich in new research and underpinned by a sophisticated engagement with questions of methodology, this impressive collection ranges widely in time and space. By focussing on the complex transcultural 'itineraries' of plants, images and spaces from the early modern period to the contemporary, each essay provides an individually enlightening case study, while taken together they make a significant contribution to our understanding of phenomena at the intersection of nature and culture."" -- Craig Clunas, FBA, University of Oxford

Author Information

Minna Törmä is an honorary senior lecturer research fellow in the history of art at the University of Glasgow and adjunct professor of art history at the University of Helsinki.

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