Late Medieval Enclosed Gardens of the Low Countries: Contributions to Gender and Artistic Expression

During the Late Middle Ages a unique type of ‘mixed media’ recycled and

remnant art arose in houses of religious women in the Low Countries:

Enclosed Gardens. These are retables, sometimes with painted side

panels, the central section filled not only with narrative sculpture,

but also with all sorts of trinkets and hand-worked textiles. Adornments

include relics, wax medallions, gemstones set in silver, pilgrimage

souvenirs, parchment banderoles, flowers made from textiles with silk

thread, semi-precious stones, pearls and quilling (a decorative

technique using rolled paper). The ensemble is an impressive and

one-of-a-kind display and presents as an intoxicating garden. In this

essay the exceptional heritage of such Enclosed Gardens is interpreted

from a range of approaches. The Enclosed Garden is studied as a symbol

of paradise and mystical union, as the sanctuary of interiority, as the

sublimation of the sensorium (in particular the sense of smell), as a

typical gendered product, and as a centre of psycho-energetic creative

processes.