GARDENS, INSIDE AND OUTSIDE

In 2010 the National Tin Figure Museum did celebrate its 25-year jubilee. On the occasion of that jubilee two special expositions have been organised. One is:

Gardens, inside and outside

27 March 2010 - 6 December 2010

Biedermeier garden scene (1837) by the Hannoverian tin smith Johann Ernst Duboist (1805-1863)

Walk through 25 centuries of garden history. Via magnificent models with fine painted, often historic, tin figures you follow the entire garden history: the Garden of Eden, the 'pairidaeza' (paradise) of the Persian monarchs, the gardens of the Egyptian pharaoh's, up to and including today gardens. The finest miniature gardens are 'inside' collected for you; absolute pieces of art.

In co-operation with the 'Gardens of Mien Ruys' you can extend your visit outside. The gardens of Dutch garden designer Mien Ruys are a green monument of 25.000 m2 , in nearby Dedemsvaart.

The Garden of Eden and the paradise, the name which the Athens author Xenophon (430 B.C.-355 B.C.) gave to the gardens of Pasargadae of the Persian emperor Cyrus the Great, are archetype images of the garden. Originally the words 'paradise' and 'garden' does mean: hedged in space.
From 10.000 B.C. people learn, first in the Near East, to grow crops to lessen their dependence on nature. Of course those first gardens had to be hedged in well, to protect them from the dangers of the outer world. Only after the Middle Ages the necessity of hedging in gardens lessened a little and opportunities arose for bigger and exuberant gardens. However it is always the garden owner who is trying to lay his will upon nature, in his attempt to regain the Divine Garden of Eden. 

 

In this jubilee exposition we follow, through loving designed miniature gardens, the history of the development of gardens. Nowhere will you find so many different and touching gardens, so clearly arranged. Chinese and Japanese gardens are represented in this exhibition also.