Exploring the relationship between feminine sexuality and garden symbolism in prints across the Blick-Harris Study Collection, this exhibit demonstrates the pervasiveness of this throughline in our collective artistic and social psyche. My journey into the garden began with La Belle Isoud by William Beardsley. I was fascinated by the beauty of the garden she’s pictured in and began to wonder about the significance of the symbolism that surrounded her in trees, fruits, and flowers. As I dove deeper into the collection, I noticed the theme of women in gardens repeated countless times across different periods and places and wanted to gain a deeper understanding of why gardens are such powerful symbols of femininity beyond the trope of Eve in the Garden of Eden and how this trope has simultaneously defined, confined, and revolutionized women’s role in society.

The garden has come to represent fertility, sexuality, and sex across many cultures. In the Western Christian tradition, the first pages of the Old Testament set the precedent that a woman seeking pleasure and knowledge through the fruit of a tree in the Garden of Eden is disobedient, impure, and wrong. In Eve’s case, her choice to eat the forbidden fruit was the fall from grace that invented the idea of sin in Western theology. In contrast, Ukiyo-e prints from Edo Japan introduced the equation of the Spring season with fertility, puberty, and sex through explicit Shunga (images of spring) woodblock prints (see: Games of Spring). These two examples, among others, demonstrate how women must skate the thin line of virtuosity and purity while also being viewed as innately sexual and profane beings, an impossible double standard that we see play out in artistic representations of women in gardens.

It’s important that we also acknowledge the power that women possess in these feminine spaces. There’s strength and beauty in new life, growth, and renewal (see: The Daffodil and Guelder Rose Fairies). The garden as a meeting place, a sharing place, and a joyful place for women makes it one of the most impactful locations for creating disruption to the systems that seek to keep women silent (see: Gossip: At Every Sip a Reputation Dies). The garden can also be seen as a metaphor for men’s fear of the ‘overgrowth’ of women’s power. Gardens are places where nature has been tamed, carefully designed, and maintained for beauty or contemplation (see: The Luxembourg Gardens, Paris, France), but they are also works of art from an unruly subject: nature. Nature’s indomitable character is a reflection of the power of women in this space. This exhibit demonstrates the duality of the garden as a site of liberation and oppression.

I would like to thank Professor Ezor for serving as my internship advisor, as well as Professors Porter and Blick and the rest of the Art History faculty for advising my work this semester.

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Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1797–1861)
Games of Spring, 1847–52
Woodblock print
14 ½ × 19 ½ in. each print
Bequest of David P. Harris (’46), 2020.412–414

At the center of this exhibition, Games of Spring sets the tone for how women and girls across cultural lines have often been depicted surrounded by floral imagery in printmaking as a display of women in sexual contexts, perhaps not as sexually explicitly as in Shunga (images of spring) prints, but still making the connection to the erotic in collective minds.

Games of Spring shows three women playing hanetsuki, a game that preceded the modern sport of badminton. This game was often played by young women around the the start of the new year which was, according to the Kyūreki (lunisolar precursor to the current calendar used in Japan), celebrated in late February as the cherry blossoms and other flowers begin to bloom.

Aubrey Beardsley (1872–1898)
La Beale Isoud at Joyous Gard
Reprint of 1894 original
Engraving
15 1/2 × 17 1/2 × 7/8 in.
Gift of Sarah Blick, 2015.39

English artist Aubrey Beardlsey illustrates Isoud (or Isolde) from the romantic Arthurian legend of Tristan and Isolde in Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur. Framed by a border of vines and pears, Isoud strolls through in a garden in a forest. Two years prior to illustrating La Beale, Beardsley took a trip to Paris where he became enthralled with the Japonisme craze. His work took on new life as products of Japanese woodcut influence by using defined lines, blocks of color, and a tilted groundplane.

Cicely Mary Barker (1895–1973)
The Daffodil Fairy, 1940
Print
4.75 × 3.5 in.
Gift of Sarah Blick, 2015.210

Cicely Mary Barker (1895–1973)
The Guelder Rose Fairies, 1940
Print
4.75 × 3.5 in.
Gift of Sarah Blick, 2015.209

English artist Cicely Mary Barker illustrated schoolchildren as fairies, often related to the natural world. Her work is known for balancing precise botanical details with enchanting, angelic images of childhood innocence. The fairies have a pure, angelic quality, reminiscent of new growth and renewal in springtime, which also suggests evocations of fertility, family, and maternity.

Unknown
The Luxembourg Gardens, Paris, France, 20th century
Photomechanical print
3 1/2 × 7 in.
Purchased by the Department of Art History, 2023.13.23

This stereograph pictures a mother and her two daughters in the highly-manicured Luxembourg Gardens. Like the garden itself, the trio is “well-behaved” according to the standards set and maintained by the bourgeois royal court, but as with any image of children, there’s potential for playfulness and rule breaking. The juxtaposition of the obedient children with the perfectly ordered garden serves as a reminder of the fragility of imposed order, where the natural impules of children, like those of nature, might disrupt the strict contraints of societal expectations.

Unknown
Gossip – At Every Sip a Reputation Dies, 20th century
Photomechanical print
3 1/2 × 7 in.
Purchased by the Department of Art History, 2023.13.22

Covered in flowers, this indoor garden room is a distinctly feminine place. Although the title is satirical, there is a kernel of truth about underlying male anxiety with regards to the power of women gathering together and sharing information. It’s also important to note that this is meant to be viewed through a stereoscope, a tool that invites the viewer into space and makes them an active participant in the image’s conversation, which raises the question of the role of the viewer’s gaze.

Unknown
Portrait of a Woman, late 19th century – early 20th century
Albumen photograph on paper (cabinet card)
6 1/2 x 4 1/4 in.
Purchased by the Department of Art History, 2023.16

Camera technology in the late 19th century made it highly challenging to take proper portraits outside of a studio because of the risk of overexposure, harsh elements, etc. The placement of this wealthy woman — who likely only had very few images taken during her lifetime — in a set designed to look like a garden highlights the intentionality behind the message it conveys.

Thomas Webster and William Finden
Sickness and Health, 1846
Engraving
15 x 19 1/4 in.
Long-term Loan from the Estate of Boris Blick, 2015.124

The interpersonal dynamics of the subjects in this engraving demonstrates the garden’s ability to encapsulate seriousness and orderliness with the delightful energy of flourishing childhood joy.

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About the Curator: Laney Goodrum ’26 is an Art History major and English minor from Austin, Texas.