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�ranz drew the inspiration for his reforms mainly from the English
example. During four lengthy visits to the British Isles he assiduously
studied cultural, political, and economic practices there. His
encounters with reformers among the aristocracy, such as the second
Earl of Shelburne, proved decisive. They not only introduced �ranz
to the latest developments in education, agriculture, manufacturing,
and industry, but also acquainted him with new trends in the
lifestyle of the nobility. Particularly noteworthy were his visits to
country houses like Chiswick, Painshill, Stourhead, and Stowe. In the
course of these sojourns he became aware of the recent fashion for
landscaped gardens, which ultimately resulted in the creation of the
garden at Wörlitz, the first English garden in Germany.
More than a pleasant environment for walks and other pastimes,
however, the garden at Wörlitz played a central role in �ranz’s
Enlightened reform programme. And this is the dimension which
Umbach’s analysis revolves around. In contrast to other scholars of
the German Enlightenment, she seeks the intellectual foundations of
�ranz’s reform projects not in theoretical treatises or public declarations,
but in the iconography of the garden at Wörlitz. �ar from being
a fanciful undertaking, such an approach is, according to Umbach, a
bare necessity. While rulers of bigger states and their ministers put
their guiding ideas and principles in writing, princes of smaller states
and their counsellors did not employ a conceptualized form of
expression. Instead of composing programmatic texts they developed
a visual language to convey their thoughts and convictions.
Often these visualized utterances provide the only access to their
minds. The neglect of such speech acts by research based exclusively
on written records, she argues, leads scholars to make false assumptions
about the extent of Enlightened activities in territories like
Anhalt-Dessau. �urthermore, she suggests, disregarding all other
kinds of communication produces a restricted picture of the Enlightenment.
Many facets of Enlightened discourse could not yet be
articulated other than in visual form: ‘Images pioneered new ways of
thinking; they articulated agendas that were not yet adequately expressed
in written language, and reinvented politics’ (p. 16). Deciphering
the non-verbal code of the Enlightenment thus allows historians
to discover hitherto hidden layers of meaning.
In Umbach’s case, the object of analysis is the horticultural iconography
at Wörlitz. By looking at the design of the garden she investi-
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A War of Words?