Landscape Effects Landscape effects are as various as the scenes which cause them, Variety of as various as the men who behold the scenes, but out of this infinity of observations men have found that certain fairly definite kinds of emotional experience can be distinguished and named and discussed. The names which we find ourselves using for landscape effects are really never very exact in meaning, and are merely names for a dominant emotional result which, being present in a number of experiences, makes them sufficiently alike to be talked of as a class. The writers of the late eighteenth century put great emphasis on Literary. the value of effects in design, and carried the discussion and classifica- Discussions of Landscape tion of effects into considerable detail; in the latter part of the period, Effects indeed, carrying it to extremes. We find in various writings of the period a stereotyped enumeration of certain effects as pertaining to certain scenes, and in some of the designs which these writings influenced, Romantic symbolism was carried to absurdity.* A great many different effects were recognized. Some of them, simply designated by the name of the emotion which they caused, were definite enough to be discussed without confusion. But the more subtle and complicated effects were differently felt and differently named by the various writers, with the result that a considerable confusion and much vigorous discussion arose because of lack of definition of terms. Two categories of effects, however, stand out as being of particular The "Beautiimportance in all this discussion: -on the one hand, those effects ful" and the "Picturwhich are associated with smooth and rounded objects, with soft- esque" textured surfaces, with flowing lines, with sequential arrangements of form, scenes, that is, in which the attention passes from object to object easily, by short stages, without sudden arresting of the attention by any object in the composition; on the other hand, those ef- Their fects which are associated with violent contrast of light and shade, of Fundamental color, of form, with harsh and coarse textures, with angular shapes, and with very individual objects, -scenes in which the interest is powerfully attracted by the characteristics of the objects, and where the attention passes, as it were, by a sudden leap from one feature in * See Chapter IV, section on the Romantic landscape style (p. 45). Compare the description of a garden designed to produce a series of violently contrasting emotions given in Triggs, Garden Craft in Europe, 1913, p. 304-305. (See REFERENCES.) Difference Their Application in Design the composition to another. The first of these two classes was rather generally called the beautiful, the second the picturesque. In our modern parlance, beauty is no longer thus considered as a kind of effect, our estheticians looking upon beauty as arising from the perfection of organization rather than from the kind of organization of a composition. The term picturesque, meaning at first merely causing such an effect as might be produced by a picture, came, when used in the sense which we have just explained, to be endowed with a much more specific meaning not inherent in the word. In our present speech much of this acquired meaning has been again lost, and the word is used more in its simpler sense, although some of the associational flavor remains, as in the antithesis of "picturesque" to "pastoral" scenery in some discussions of park design. As a practical consideration in design, however, these two different classes of effects are as important now as they were then. (Compare Plate 21 with Plate 12, and Drawing XXV, opp. p. 196, with Drawing XXVI, opp. p. 198.) On the one hand, many scenes, of effects different in subordinate ways, may be grouped together, and may be felt as being, as it were, emotionally similar, if their total effect is restful, calm, peaceful, depending on a smooth flow of attention. Such effects are produced through association, for instance, by pastoral landscape. Through the more direct agency of form, they are produced by the flowing curves of rolling grassland, or of a slowly winding river; by the rounded masses of low hills or of well-grown round-headed deciduous trees; or by the just proportions of a classic temple. The beauties of such scenes come to the observer slowly: no pressing demand is made upon his attention, and only through contemplation or repeated observation does he become aware of the full charm of the landscape before him. Such a scene has from the first a peculiar restfulness, and is not likely to lose its appeal even when it becomes thoroughly familiar On the other hand, an emotional unity may similarly be felt among scenes or objects which through their Romantic association or their association with violent manifestations of the forces of nature, ór through their striking form or character, make a powerful immediate appeal to the interest, and either draw the attention strongly from object to object or concentrate it intensely on one point. Such a scene might be, in extreme terms, the landscape of shattered crag and winddistorted trees of the smuggler's pass in Carmen or of the Wolf's Glen in Der Freischütz; or of the Matterhorn, or Mont St. Michel, or the great structure with its giant Hercules crowning the hillside vista at Wilhelmshöhe; or, in less striking manifestation, a little rocky glen with a tumbling waterfall, or a hilltop ledge with a single gnarled pine.* Just as these two large and fundamentally different effects have Examples of been recognized by critics and designers, so out of the multitude of Other Effects effects an indefinite number of others, of varying distinctness and of varying importance, have also been recognized. In this chapter we shall discuss a few of these effects, which on account of their common appeal to all observers have more or less definite names and values. Sublimity, grandeur, in landscape is commonly the result of the Sublimity perception of the vast size or power or duration of the manifestations of nature in comparison with the insignificance of man. It is most commonly produced therefore by the extent of the landscape, or the size of some object in it, - a great cliff or a range of mountains, or a vast plain or the sea, or perhaps a forest of giant trees. (See Frontispiece and Plates 7, 13, and 23.) It will be enhanced by, indeed it will not be effected without, some means of measuring the actual size of * "The different effects which art is able to produce, however various and incommensurable they may radically be, are commensurable at least in this: that each in some degree makes a demand on our attention. Some works of art affect us, as it were, by infiltration, and are calculated to produce an impression that is slow, pervasive and profound. These seek neither to capture the attention nor to retain it, yet they satisfy it when it is given. Other works arrest us, and by a sharp attack upon the senses or the curiosity insist on our surrender. Their function is to stimulate and excite. But since, as is well known, we cannot long react to a stimulus of this type, it is essential that the attention should, in these cases, be soon enough released. Otherwise, held captive and provoked, we are confronted with an insistent appeal which, since we can no longer respond to it, must become in time fatiguing or contemptible. "Of these two types of esthetic appeal, each commands its own dominion; neither is essentially superior to the other, although, since men tend to set a higher value on that which satisfies them longest, it is art of the former kind which has most often been called great. But they do both possess an essential fitness to different occasions." Geoffrey Scott, The Architecture of Humanism: a Study in the History of Taste, 1914, p. 83-84. |