Setting of roundings, the designer must take into account a more general appropriateness of effect. Statues representing the Seasons, or Youth, or Love, or Joy, or Peace, might well find a congenial home in a garden. A statue of a falconer might be appropriately placed on the edge of a wood overlooking a park meadow; a statue of a tigress might be used in the wild scenery of a park which suggests the wilder scenery of the jungle. Where a statue represents something which might actually appear in its living shape in the same setting, it is extremely important that the statue should be treated as a representation, not as an imitation of the thing which it portrays. It should be plainly a statue, separate from its setting by being upon a pedestal, and probably so much the further removed from the realm of actuality by being of heroic size. Statuary may be perfectly in place in informal settings, but only certain statuary is so.* First, as we have before said, the effect and suggestion of the statue must be congruous with its location. Then its form, including the form of its pedestal, must not be too rigid and architectural; indeed as in the statues of Daudet and Thomas in the Parc Monceau, the pedestal may be an irregular mass of rock, perhaps covered or garlanded with vines and closely wrought into the surrounding ground and planting. Then, as the contrasts of color in the natural landscape are likely to be less violent than they are in man's landscape designs, the marble statue which might be none too distinctive a note on a formal parterre would be too staring white in a park. A statue of bronze, of lead, of gray or weathered stone, would probably be more harmonious in the naturalistic surroundings. Some statues are sufficiently beautiful in all aspects to stand free and be looked at from all sides. Where such a statue is seen relieved against the sky, its relative size and bulk in the composition must be looked to, that it may not appear attenuated and insignificant. Many statues, however, are frankly designed to face one way only, and should therefore be provided with proper enframement and proper background. A niche in a trimmed hedge, a retaining wall and two sentinel cedars, and many other formal arrangements may serve for the statue closely * See the illustrated article by H. A. Caparn, Statuary in Informal Settings, in Landscape Architecture, Oct. 1910. (See REFERENCES.) inclosed in a formal design. In a naturalistic design this enframement may be provided by an informal planting, or it may be better that the statue stand free, relieved against a more distant background, but that the spectator be unable to view it except in its favorable aspect. In all the landscape architect's regulated and formalized designs, Architectural there is one element-water-over which he has no permanent tural Water and Sculpcontrol. He can determine the amount of its flow, he can determine Features the shape of its mirror in his formal basins, but in its curve of fall from one basin to another, in its noise of trickling and splashing, in its reflections and the sudden flurry of wind on its surface, it is as free in the formal garden as it is in the mountain brook. Under the sun of Italy or Spain or Persia or California, water and shade are the two precious things in a garden; and anywhere in the United States in summer, the cooling sight and sound of water, if it had no further qualification, would fit it for a most important place in the design.* According to the amount of its flow, falling water varies in its effect from a little contented chattering trickle to a noble rush of water like that of the larger fall at the Villa d' Este. Where the situation allows it, an ample flow of water coming forth first at the upper portion of the scheme and then appearing in fountain and fall and cascade and pool in its progress throughout the design, is an ideal to be sought; but usually the supply of water is limited or the natural gradient is slight, and we must content ourselves with a small display of flowing water and use our ingenuity to make this as effective as possible. Water may appear first in a scheme, with a certain suggestion of Grottoes and being a natural supply, if it comes out in a niche or perhaps in a grotto in a retaining wall. In the case of the grotto, the dominating idea would probably be that of coolness. A grotto is in any case expensive, however, and it is difficult to make such a construction containing a flow of water which shall not be dank and unpleasant rather than refreshingly cool. More readily, somewhat the same effect at a smaller scale might be obtained by having the water appear in a deep overshadowed niche, perhaps planted with ferns and other vegetation thriving in damp and shade. In some of the Italian examples where the * For the use of water in its natural forms in landscape design, see Chapter VIII, p. 136. Wall Fountains Cascades Water-ramps water so appears in a niche, it falls from above upon a pile of rockwork intended to be disposed in a naturalistic way. If the rockwork is practically hidden by the splashing water, so that the effect is that of an architectural niche filled by a gleaming cascade, the result may well be good; if, however, the rockwork appears to any extent, the result is likely to be ugly, for the rockwork with only some trickling water is not a sufficiently definite object to be worthy of its enframement. It is usually better to have water issue from some definite and decorative object, from the mouth of a grotesque mask or from a dolphin, for instance. Of more elaborate wall fountains with architectural and sculptural adjuncts there is no end. In any thoroughly satisfactory arrangement of this kind, however, the splashing and sparkling of water is the center of interest, and the water itself is sufficient in volume to be adequate to its position. There are many elaborate and pretentious fountains which for lack of a sufficient water-supply are merely dampened in places by a trickling and slimy stream, sufficient to spoil the effect of the structure, but not sufficient to give any of the beauty of running water. A small supply of water, however, properly managed may give a very considerable effect. It can be arranged to fall from one basin into another in a clean but thin sheet without wasting any of its volume by running down over the surface of the stone, if the lip of the basin be properly undercut.* Similarly if the water flows in a cascade, or over sculptured irregularities in the course of a water-chute, the channel may be so designed as to throw the water into the air in a series of sharp leaps rather than to allow it to trickle around the obstructions with no spattering of drops to catch the sun. The water-ramp gives a noticeable effect from a moderate watersupply, where the stream flows in a channel hollowed out in the ramp beside a flight of steps. There may be a series of carved shells or other sculptural modelings of the channel throwing the water back and forth and making the most of its appearance and its sound. And each pier of the ramp may be crowned with a little basin and graced with a delicate toppling spurt of water, perhaps fed from the channel in the ramp, but more probably from a separate source which gives somewhat more pressure. Such ramps may be found at the Villa d'Este * Cf. Chapter VIII, p. 142. at Tivoli, at the Villa Farnese, at Caprarola, and at the Villa Lante, and in many other places, especially in Italy. The free-standing fountain of superposed basins, often decorated Free-standing with a statue, with the water proceeding from a central jet, or perhaps Fountains from a series of jets arranged about the lower basin, is the most ordinary fountain with which we are familiar. Its form is dominantly architectural or sculptural, and the water plays a subordinate part. If it is to be a fountain at all, however, it should be sufficiently supplied with water so that the rising and converging misty jets or the clean curving, falling film should bear a designated part in the designed form of the whole feature. There is no limit to the form of free-standing fountains except the limit to man's ingenuity. Turtles, dolphins, seahorses, Tritons, Nereids, any of the race of water-dwelling creatures, natural and mythological, may decorate a fountain basin or spout water across it. In the great basin at Wilhelmshöhe, there is a single magnificent shaft of water which rises some two hundred feet above the surface of the basin. A fountain in the Fountain Court at Hampton Court consists of a series of interwoven jets making a basket of crystal. A small fountain in a sequestered place might consist of a simple circular pool in the midst of which, on a block of stone, was set a great graceful blown-glass vase, like an Italian fiasco, constantly brimming with clear water and overflowing in a thin film clothing the outside of the glass and dripping into the pool; or in a similar situation, there might be, supported on a slender shaft eighteen inches or so above the surface of a little pool, a bronze water-lily on a leaf from under the edge of which, through an annular opening, a thin unbroken sheet of water would fall like a quivering hemispherical bubble into the pool below. Besides using in design the life and dash and sparkle of running Pools and water, the landscape architect may also turn to his purposes the calm Basins of the standing pool, with its interwoven reflections. A pool may be designed like a low flower bed or a grass panel, as a portion of the surface-treatment of a parterre or garden. Usually such a pool will be made a part of the foreground of some important object so that its power of reflection may be made the most of in duplicating and enhancing something of particular beauty. When a pool is so used, it should usually be designed to be brimming full of water, and generally its long di Bridges mension should run with the direction of the view towards the object A pool may form the central feature of a shady bosquet, where the A bridge is primarily a structure built for use. Though the landscape designer may seize upon it as giving him a chance of erecting an interesting object where he wishes it in his esthetic design, still it must be fitted to carry traffic and it should look as if it were so fitted. A bridge, therefore, should be in scale both with the road or path which it carries and with the water, or possibly a ravine or another road, which it crosses, when this second feature is of any importance in the com |