“Blooming: The Art of Gardens in East and West” at the Hong Kong Museum of Art is a spectacular show that brings together the gardening traditions of China with those of France and Italy, placing particular emphasis on China’s Qing dynasty (1644-1912) and France’s Palace of Versailles.

Co-organised with the Palace Museum in Beijing, the Art Institute of Chicago and the Palace of Versailles, the show gathers artworks from different eras that reflect the universal joy people find in nature and the cultivation of personal gardens.

How the ruling classes and the wealthy enjoyed spending time in their gardens is portrayed through a smooth curatorial approach that juxtaposes images and artefacts from opposite sides of the Eurasian land mass.

The show is peppered with studies of flora and fauna, such as delightful woodblock prints by the Japanese master Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849) from the Art Institute of Chicago’s collection.

But the emphasis is on the human creation of gardens, a cultural construct as old as humanity that mimics an idealised vision of nature.

When Louis XIV, king of France from 1643 to 1715, moved his court from Paris to the Palace of Versailles, his vision for its gardens was one of pageantry and grandiosity.