Notes on the State of Virginia

by Thomas Jefferson

Monticello is a garden that celebrates the American landscape, which becomes incredibly important after the War of Independence when the Americans, who don’t have the poetry and castles of the Old World, are desperately trying to be able to demonstrate that things are better in the New World. And landscape becomes a way of doing that, because the towering trees and vastness of the continent are genuinely more spectacular… So, for me, Monticello is a celebration of the new America – this young, strong, bountiful nation that’s at ease with its own environment.