The Barnes Arboretum was directed by Mrs. Barnes, and it is clear that she was also influenced by her husband as she developed the land on their twelve acre estate. The Arboretum is beautiful, and follows the educational mission of The Barnes Foundation to promote creativity, objective and critical thinking guided by scientific inquiry, and the importance of relationships. Our guide for the tour took us to plants and trees that were often grouped together by their shared genus. She explained that she liked to refer to these groupings of trees as Mrs. Barnes' ensembles. If you are familiar with the art of the Barnes collection, you know that the art is assembled not in any linear fashion as a traditional museum would have it, but in a collection of paintings, metalwork, and even furniture, which are referred to as ensembles. These ensembles ask the viewers to see the relationship between the art on a given wall, in a given room. In a similar way, the Arboretum invites the same kind of inquiry to explore how and why certain plants and trees are arranged together.
Mrs. Barnes believed that any plant could flourish if it was given the proper conditions to grow. This required research and planning to make the planting decisions that she made. Through this process, she planted trees from all over the world that have prospered on her Pennsylvania estate. She enjoyed every part of her plants and trees to the point that she even payed close attention to their bark. The bark of many trees have unique traits that I had not noticed or appreciated before.
As we were taken around the property, our guide also pointed out the artistic principles of line, light, color, and space that Mrs. Barnes used while designing her gardens that are the same principles used by artists when painting. In the same way an artist paints, a gardener can use these principles to construct the arrangement of his or her plants for an aesthetic effect.
I enjoyed learning about the purposeful approach to designing this arboretum that was guided by educational ideas to create a special place. The theme of relationships arose several times during our tour, and it reinforced the essential understanding of the interconnectivity of everything in our world, which I believe was a central educational insight that Mrs. Barnes, Dr. Barnes, and John Dewey wanted their students to accomplish. In fact, I believe this insterconnectivity is a central concept for sound educational practice in general.
Example of a Barnes Ensemble
This "Monkey Puzzle" Tree was awesome.
