Objects in Value any chosen object almost to the exclusion of objects nearer and farther away. It is impossible for the eye to see clearly at the same instant objects which are at widely different distances. If, therefore, the attention is called to an object, the eye focuses upon it, and objects at other distances are consequently thrown out of focus and make less appeal to attention. This fact makes it possible in landscape composition to use as a dominant object something subtending a very small proportion of the visual angle. For instance, a very distant mountain of marked form but not notable size may serve in a landscape view as a perfectly satisfactory climax, but in no ordinary photograph of that view will it appear other than insignificant. It is to be noticed that while the painter has a definite and distinct frame surrounding his picture, in a landscape composition it is more or less a matter of arbitrary definition whether a certain object shall be considered as a portion of the frame or as a subordinate mass in the composition (see Drawing II, opp. p. 30); and furthermore, as we have seen, an object which helps to enframe one composition may play a dominant part in another. Whether a landscape composition be formal or not formal, the designer will be concerned with arranging it so that the attention may be held at one point or led from point to point in an ordered manner. He will introduce and arrange objects in his composition on account of the specific functions which they can serve in this way. Some objects, for instance, serve best to segregate one open area from another, like simple informal planting masses or formal walls and fences (see Plate 33 and Drawing XIV, opp. p. 112); some objects serve to decorate the surface of the ground, like fields of grain or fallen leaves or formal carpet-bedding and paths and pools (see Plates 29 and 30); some objects serve to call attention directly to themselves and thus play a dominant part in the whole design, or, according to their scale, in some subordinate part of it. (See again Plates 29 and 30, and also Drawing XX, opp. p. 158.) Such an object might be a mountain, a great oak tree, a flowering shrub, or a house, a pavilion, a hooded seat, or a sundial. While the essential esthetic functions of well-composed objects are definite in any scene, whether it be formal or informal, still they are more easily understood and explained when they manifest themselves in formal design; and as in a formal garden all the more important functions of objects in composition in some way appear, we shall continue the discussion of these relations using the garden as an example in the section on the garden in Chapter XI.* We have been considering the various objects in landscape com- Temporary position which we have discussed, as being for the purposes of our de- Elements sign permanent in location and changing in form no faster than does, for instance, a growing plant. It is often desirable, however, to count as a part of our compositions men and animals moving about and having no definite location in the design. (See Plate 10, and Drawing XI, opp. p. 82.) It is evident that an object whose location is unpredictable can hardly be relied upon as a dominant object in a composition. Usually the designer expects rather to get a certain vivacity and variety from this element, a certain diversification of surfaces which otherwise might be too bare and simple, whether he is dealing with the ducks in a pond, the sheep in a pasture, or the crowds of courtiers on the great terrace at Versailles. Every landscape shares to some extent in the changing beauty of the sky and the moving clouds. (See Frontispiece and Plates II and 22.) In an inclosed garden this may be but an incident; in an open and distant view into the west, it may be the frequent presence of clouds more than anything else that makes the view a desirable one. Although man cannot predict the exact beauty which the skies may at any time offer to him, he may nevertheless so arrange his design that he may take advantage of whatever beauties may come, and that his own work may appear to advantage whether in sunshine against a darkened distance or silhouetted in cloud shadow against a brilliant background. * Pages 233-246. K The Value in Natural Forms CHAPTER VIII NATURAL FORMS OF GROUND, ROCK, AND WATER THE VALUE IN DESIGN OF A KNOWLEDGE OF NATURAL FORMS-HILLS AND MOUNTAINS: typical forms - Hill and mountain forms in landscape composition Modification of effect of hill by treatment of local details - VALLEYS: typical forms Choice of viewpoint for completeness of effect of valley - PLAINS: typical forms and effects BODIES OF WATER: their effects - Lakes - Islands Shores and beaches Streams and stream banks Waterfalls - ROCKS IN Bowlders - Ledges - Color and texture of rocks - Rock NATURALISTIC DESIGN planting MINOR MODELING OF GROUND SURFACE Banks. The natural forms of ground, rock, and water have individuality and value as elements in landscape composition in the degree that they have striking shape or color or texture, recognizable natural character, or appreciable emotional effect. The smaller natural forms, — such things as brook valleys, undulations of ground surface, small ponds, the landscape designer may sometimes control. He may preserve them, and incorporate them into his own work, or he may imitate them in totally new construction. The larger natural forms-mountains and prairies and great river valleys, the ocean, large lakes, and the greater features of their shores are landscape elements quite beyond the power of the designer to change in any essential way. He may, however, choose and develop certain points of view from which the natural landscape forms fall into good pictorial compositions, and he may arrange the foreground over which he has control in such a way as to enframe a good composition and to conceal incongruous elements. Also- and this should be the first duty and the greatest pleasure of a student of naturalistic design - he may study the great natural forms, become familiar with their character, get inspiration from their effect, and in the light of his appreciation convey some part of his inspiration to the beholder of his own small work. In whatever one of these ways he deals with natural landscape, knowledge of the natural forms is a prerequisite to good design. This knowledge can be obtained only by patient study of the forms themselves. This chapter can do no more than consider a few examples from a great number of forms, and discuss a few of the simpler considerations out of vast possibilities of appreciation and inspiration. In ground forms large and small, the landscape architect finds the three simple fundamental form unities, the convex, the concave, and the plane. He studies hills and mountains, or valleys, or plains, and again he makes in his own work similar forms and relations of forms, of a size possible of production within his limited powers. Typical Forms From the multitude of shapes of hills and mountains, the designer Hills and Mountains: might differentiate for purposes of discussion three classes according to the way in which the attention falls on their modeling and on their outline. There are hills which are crouching and comfortable, roundtopped, gentle-sloped, merging by imperceptible degrees into the surrounding ground surface. (See Plate 22.) The attention which follows their surfaces or their silhouettes against the distant sky may run as readily away from their top as towards it, and is definitely arrested nowhere along the line. Such hills are individual because they lift themselves as considerable masses above the neighboring landscape, but their surface is sequential with the surrounding forms. As their height becomes less and their slopes less steep, they lose their individuality, and become at length merely undulations of a general surface. Such hills may be the results of many different geologic causes, but they are often produced by long-continued erosion or deposition of soft materials. They may perhaps be left standing, first current-cut and then rain-worn, above the flat-bottomed valleys of the lower reaches of a river, being the remnants of a former plain, all the rest of which has been carried away by the stream; or they may be moraines or drumlins, masses of débris carried and at last deposited by the ice or by the under-ice water of a glacier. There are mountains which are aspiring and individual, having a definite summit in which the lines of the slopes culminate and on which Hill and the attention perforce rests. The lower portions of the slopes of such mountains need not be steep, and may indeed run smoothly into the surrounding ground forms; in fact the peak or crest of the mountain need form only a very small portion of its total bulk, but it attracts the attention and gives character and individuality to the whole eminence by concentrating in one dominating spire the upward sweep of the whole mountain mass. Such mountains, or at least their summits, must be made of hard material, and usually are the result of upheaval and of the disintegrating effects of frost and the erosion of water, their endlessly different shapes being the results of the cleavage or stability of the different rocks under the action of the destructive forces. This is, in most men's minds, the typical mountain form. Whether the beholder regards it as inspiring and sublime, or repellent and wild, will depend in part on the form of the mountain, no doubt upon its crags and its cap of snow, but more the effect will depend on the observer himself. A mountain range which seems inhospitable to the farmer, and savage to the city dweller, may be a glorious challenge to the mountaineer. (See Frontispiece.) There are hills which rise abruptly from the surrounding landscape and bear on their tops a more or less level area, segregated by the steepness of the slopes from the lands below it. Such a butte or mesa attracts the attention as a separated mass in the general composition; there is no sequence of line either over or into the outline of the hill from the surrounding landscape. The upper plateau is segregated both actually and esthetically by the barrier sides. As an object in composition, such a hill is likely to be very individual, and to relate to other objects only by its total mass or color. Such hills may be the result of the water erosion of a previous plain made of a material which has a very high angle of repose, usually of a horizontally stratified material with a hard crowning layer, or they may be, exceptionally, the results of uplifting or subsidence along a fault plane. A single mountain may be looked at for its own beauty, just as a statue may be, but a distant view of a mountain inevitably includes other elements besides the mountain itself, and if the mountain is to be most effective in the larger view in which it forms only a part, it must be compositionally related to the other objects in the view: it |