'From Ham House to the Pineapples of Groombridge Place: Locating The Draughtsman’s Contract'

Abstract

Much has been written about Peter Greenaway’s The Draughtsman’s Contract (1982), but the film’s garden mise-en-scène has not been analysed in detail. My paper will trace its development from script to screen and discuss the ways in which Greenaway’s detailed research inflected the film’s landscape iconography. In doing so, it will present an archaeological model for analysing the aesthetics of screen landscape gardens.