From the Romantic period until today, the concept of the Hispano-Muslim garden has evolved in parallel to the changes in the way the perception of al-Andalus has been understood, acquiring contradictory connotations at different times and due to different authors. We will analyse the phenomenon by relating it to social changes as well as its impact on the creation of a regionalist style of garden that eventually became mainstream in the early decades of the twentieth century and even more deeply-rooted following the military and ideological victory of nationalist thinking of the Spanish Civil War. In this context, the contributions of important figures with regard to the history of landscape gardening theory and practice will be examined, via Spanish authors such as Melitón Atienza and Pedro Julián Muñoz y Rubio, as will the definitive shape of the garden, with important roles played by the painter Santiago Rusiñol and the French theoretician and gardener Jean-Claude Nicolas Forestier. Our analysis of the manifestations of the concept’s historical authenticity will be overlapped by that of how it was reflected in the aesthetics of theoretically Islamic gardens created during each period.
Regionalist garden, Hispano-Muslim garden, Jean-Claude Nicolas Forestier, Santiago Rusiñol, Francisco Prieto-Moreno.