Hoosier Garden

Gustave Baumann

Baumann wrote numerous manuscripts on Brown County, and the following excerpt from his writing explains the imagery: “The houses in Nashville had a character all their own with no particular style other than dictated by available building material. Trees and orchards nestled in comfortable summer shade and there were many flowers for which the pattern was set by Grandma Battin’s garden. Hidden away in a little alley on the edge of town it had a mixture of growing things that only loving care can produce. Pictured on a seed package of old-fashioned flowers it would have had irresistible buying appeal even without the hummingbirds that buzzed it constantly.”

In "Hoosier Garden" Baumann invites the viewer to envision themselves in such a place, looking out on a warm afternoon from the shade of a comfortable porch, onto a sea of late spring blooms. Holyhocks, dahlias, black-eyed susans, morning glories, and lush green leaves spill onto the earthen pathway as a deep blue sky arches overhead.