full grown, are really smaller than might be expected. This effect of size may also be heightened by false aërial perspective, to which we have already referred.* Of course the application of this sort of refinement is limited, and could readily be carried to an unprofitable extreme.

In naturalistic design it normally happens that in any given impor- Illusions of tant view the designer does what he can to enhance the character of Character the pond or valley or other small naturalistic unit which forms the principal part of the particular scene.† Sometimes, by judicious screening out of incongruous elements and careful concentration of attention. on those elements which are of the character intended to be brought out, a special character may be given to a scene as beheld from a certain point of view, although it would be readily seen from other points of view that this was not the real character of the region in question. For instance, a small stream of water, carried elsewhere in a ditch or pipe, might be expanded in the middle distance of a certain view to resemble a shallow, sluggish natural stream. A pond which for purposes of water supply had its level raised artificially higher than some of the surrounding country might be made to appear much more natural by so arranging the views that the retaining banks were concealed by foliage, and the pond itself was approached and seen only from land higher than its own surface. The desirability of this kind of effect will depend on how successful it is when seen from the chosen viewpoint, and on whether the occasions are so few as to be negligible on which it will be seen from some position which betrays its artificiality. The effects which landscapes have through association may be in- Associational creased by suggesting to the mind associations which are interesting and congruous but not properly belonging to the particular scene. This was carried to an absurd degree in the time of the Romanticists, when false ruins were built, and ruined forts and the tombs of imaginary heroes were placed in the landscape for their sentimental effect. In naturalistic design a somewhat similar although much more desirable thing is done where a low hill is made to appear much higher than it really is by planting upon it dwarfed trees and Alpine vegetation which the mind naturally associates with much greater elevations.‡ * Page 116. † Cf. Chapter V, p. 71. Cf. Chapter IX, p. 166.

Illusions

Landscape
Compositions

Here again the line between the deliberate creation of a false impression and the reasonable enhancement of existing natural character is a fine one, and not always easy or profitable to draw.

As we have already seen, a landscape architect in determining the esthetic effects of a composition considers first what its pictorial effect will be upon an observer from a given position. Of course in his actual construction of his design he is inevitably concerned with the location of his objects in three dimensions, but since it is mainly through the two-dimensional picture or series of pictures which the eye receives that the actual objects may be perceived, it is mainly by the beauty perceived and inferred through these pictures that the esthetic excellence of the actual work will be judged. Where the designer is creating a definitely unified object like a formal inclosed garden or like a shrub-and-tree-surrounded lawn, he may trust the observer to walk about in it, to receive many visual impressions from it, and at length to acquire from them all some definite idea of the unity and beauty of the whole. Even in such a case, however, there will be certain views which are particularly attractive, particularly characteristic, and the designer will do what he can to impress these upon the observer to the comparative neglect of other views less effective. In an informal or a naturalistic landscape, not having any geometrical total unity of shape to be understood by walking through it and observing it, but having on the contrary a total unity of character, or a certain definite characteristic sort of beauty, this character or beauty will be perceived at its best in certain views, and will appear to less advantage in others, and it will be necessary for the designer to work out with care the two-dimensional pictorial aspect of his design as seen from these important viewpoints and to do everything that he can to lead the spectators to enjoy his work from these viewpoints, and to judge its character and its excellence by these selected views seen in an effective sequence.

In most of the landscape architect's designs, which consist of a number of separate units each serving its own purpose, economic or esthetic — like the various parts of a country estate, for instancethe pictorial compositions will be obtained in the ways just mentioned. Some views will be comprised entirely within some one portion of the

design, like a view in a forecourt, in a garden, within a lawn; other views may lie across several units of this kind, and perhaps include foliage masses outside the property and terminate on a distant mountain. The pictorial unity of these two kinds of views is essentially the same. The first kind, however, may be represented, or at least suggested for study, on the plan of the grounds; the second kind can be studied, as it can be seen, only on the ground itself.

There is obviously no limit to the variety of different landscape Typical Kinds compositions. The essential of a landscape composition, as we have of Pictorial Compositions seen,* is some unified appeal to the attention throughout the objects forming the composition, which makes them seem to the observer to form one whole and thereby to some extent at least - segregates that whole from the rest of the world. The arrangements of objects in a view which may produce this unified effect may be thought of as being of three typically different kinds.

The compositional effect may be produced by a single thing looked at, like a specimen tree or an isolated fountain (see Tailpiece on p. 294), or by a unified group of things looked at, for instance, a unified group of contiguous trees on a lawn.

The compositional effect may be produced by a number of things physically separated, but evincing such great unity in appearance or related position that attention falls rather upon this unifying relation than upon the objects themselves, for instance a formal arrangement of four cypress trees about a pool, or a grouping of red cedars and gray bowlders in a New England pasture, or a unified group of mountain peaks. (See Frontispiece.)

The compositional effect may be produced by a hollow thing looked into, such a thing as a walled garden, a shrub-bordered lawn, or a cliffencircled mountain tarn. (See Plates 6, 8, and 30, and Drawing I, opp. p. 26.)

In the first case, the single object may attract the attention simply because it is so interesting in itself, and although other objects are physically present in the view, their effect is negligible in the composition. Indeed with the single object in the first case or with the unified composition of objects discussed in the second case, there may * Page 89.