so perfectly interpreted nature's character that the work should seem to be a wonderfully complete and intelligible expression of nature's self. In these designs of man which imitate or better, interpret nature, there will be two kinds of unity sought by the designer. He will seek, as he does in his man-made designs, esthetic compositional harmony of form and color and arrangement, but he will seek also to express his ideal of a much more subtle harmony, namely, the landscape character which in large measure is not observed directly in the forms or in the composition, but is seen only in the light of some knowledge of the great natural forces at work, the growth of trees, the wavecarving of the beaches, the upheaval of the hills.

In natural landscape, this character is the result of infinitely greater Interpretation and more complicated reactions of forces than those which shape the of Landscape Character works of man. These forces operate on so vast a scale and through such great stretches of time that the particular manifestations which we now observe are never the perfect expression of a combination of forces working all towards one obvious end. The river valley has been first upheaved and then eroded; the mountain slope has been forestclad, stripped by an avalanche, again forest-clad, and again perhaps denuded by fire. In his own small work man may express his ideal of what might be the result if nature deigned to coördinate her forces for so small an end as man's esthetic pleasure. But when man deals with larger works of nature, all he can do, all he should dare attempt, is humbly to study the character and effect of the landscape as he finds it and to remove such things as he may which are incongruous with this expression and add such things as he can which will carry it to a greater completeness.

Origin and

Names of
Historic
Styles

CHAPTER IV

STYLES OF LANDSCAPE DESIGN

HISTORIC STYLES OF LANDSCAPE DESIGN

ORIGIN AND NAMES OF HISTORIC STYLES CATEGORIES OF STYLES EXAMPLES OF
The Moorish style in Spain-The
Moghul style in India — The styles of the Italian Renaissance and Baroque
villas - The style of Le Nôtre - The Romantic landscape style - The English
formal style of the Tudors - The English cottage style - The New England
colonial style-The modern German formal style - The Japanese styles -
The modern American landscape style - STUDY OF STYLES- CHOICE OF STYLE.
In studying existing works of landscape architecture we find that
we may consider in groups works which produce a similar effect on the
beholder on account of a fundamental similarity in their organization;
and we have seen that the similarity of organization comes in the case
of each group from a similarity of conditions under which the examples
in the group were brought forth, conditions, namely, of their physical
environment and material, of the people who made them or for whom
they were made, and of the purposes for which they were produced.
Although sometimes one of these factors, sometimes another, appears
as most strikingly characteristic in the resultant groups, we find that
the various historic styles of landscape design which have been differen-
tiated have taken their names usually from the peoples which originated
them and the countries in which they arose, occasionally from an in-
dividual whose name was associated with certain definite pieces of
work which were the first examples of the style, and, rarely, from the
total esthetic effect produced by the style. Naturally enough, most of
our names of historic styles designate at once both the people and the
country associated with their origin; for example, we speak loosely
of an Italian style of landscape design.
But since the ideals and customs

of a people change with time, and since in different parts even of one
country the natural conditions may be very different, if we intend to

designate a style accurately, we must name also its period and perhaps its definite location: we must say, for instance, the style of the Florentine Renaissance gardens. Equally definite with the name of the period and country-seventeenth century French style, for instance is the

name of the designer or his client, as Le Nôtre or Louis XIV. The style of Le Nôtre was also called the Grand style, that is, it was designated by its esthetic effect upon the beholder. Another style, esthetically almost its antithesis, also bears the name of an esthetic effect, the Romantic landscape style. As is natural, since the esthetic effect varies with the beholder, these names are of themselves less exact, and they come to have a definite signification only as custom sanctions their use in relation to certain recognizably characterized groups of designs.

Several styles of landscape design different enough to bear different Categories specific names may yet be similar enough in some respects to be put in of Styles the same category in discussion. From the point of view of esthetic effect upon the observer, styles have been grouped into the two divergent categories, Classic and Romantic. Any style might be considered as Classic which was characterized fundamentally by repose, restraint, refinement, formality, although the name is more specifically applied, as it is in architecture, to the work of ancient Greece and Rome, which was marked by these characteristics. The word often connotes also an accepted standard, since the styles of Greece and Rome were so long thus regarded, but this is plainly not an essential meaning of the word. In contradistinction to Classic is the word Romantic,* as applied to those styles which excite the sentiments and fancy by variety and contrast and make a direct and studied appeal to the emotions, through the human associations aroused.

From the point of view of the form and space relation of the objects in the design, styles have been divided into the two categories which have been the innocent cause of so much discussion and misapprehension: formal and informal. The reason that these terms have occupied so important a place in the discussion of styles in landscape design is that they are the names of modes of organization so general that almost all other styles may be included under the one or the other. We hear so much about them, not because they are such valuable categories, but * Cf. the two kinds of effects, discussed in Chapter VI, p. 77.

D

because they are such inclusive categories. Plainly they may divide the world between them. A formal design is one in which the objects are arranged in geometrical relations, their forms defining geometric figures on plan or being exactly balanced about a central axis. Such a design has been variously called architectural, regular, symmetrical, and geometrical. An informal design is one in which the objects are not arranged in the way we have just stated, that is, it is any design which is not formal. (Compare Plate 30 and Drawing II, opp. p. 30.) Most of the difficulties in regard to the term informal have arisen because different men have understood it in different senses. Some of the more ardent disciples of formal design have in effect considered informal to be synonymous with formless, and have denied that any good design could exist where, as they considered, there was no consistent organization of any kind. Others, having observed that the works of nature are without geometrical form, have endeavored to make their designs appear natural by the simple expedient of allowing no geometrical forms or balanced relations to appear.* The thoroughly unorganized and bad work produced in this way has been used as a reproach to those who were doing good naturalistic work, that is, design which, not being organized to express man's will, nor to express his esthetic desire for recognizable form and symmetrical balance, was informal, but was none the less composed, depending on more occult relations of balance and harmony and organized as an expression of the unity of certain forces of nature. It is evident that the negative term informal is so general that it is of very little value in naming a style, and should certainly not be used as the designation of the principle of organization of naturalistic design.

From the point of view of the fundamental ideal expressed by the designer, styles of landscape design fall into two classes, those which express the dominance and the will of man and those which express the designer's appreciation of the power and beauty of nature.† (Compare Drawing IX, opp. p. 78 with Plate 21, and Tailpiece on p. 230 with Plate 27.) We have called the styles which fall into the first of these categories humanized and those which fall into the second, naturalistic. Since giving an object geometrical form is a common * Cf. footnote on p. 45. † See Chapter III, p. 30.