"TO A TRUE LANDSCAPE GARDENER FLOWERS, SHRUBS, TREES AND SHAVEN LAWNS ARE... PIGMENTS, MASSES OF LIGHT AND SHADE, TEXTURES, SURFACES, WITH WHICH HE COMPOSES HIS OUTDOOR PICTURES WOMEN AND THE ART OF LANDSCAPE GARDENING BY MARY BRONSON HARTT "There is no ancient gentlemen but gardeners; . . . they hold up Adam's profession," was the not altogether unprejudiced opinion of the First Gravedigger; and we may infer from Mr. John La Farge's statement that the Fiji Islander arranges his garden with an engaging taste, not inartistic, that the art of landscape gardening was known before the dawn of civilization. But, like most of the other arts, it was of comparatively late development in this country. Its greatest American exponent, the late Frederick Law Olmsted, did not enter upon his career as a landscape architect until after the Civil War. The secure and honorable position which landscape gardening has now come to hold among the professions and its successful adoption by a small group of earnest women have led The Outlook to ask Miss Hartt to present a study of this latter phase of the subject. Landscape gardening for women is no longer an experiment, though the question of the extent to which the natural aptitude and the requisite training for it can be combined with the necessary strength and endurance may still remain unanswered. In connection with Miss Hartt's article we present a series of photographs which, while only in part portraying the work of women, illustrate certain general phases of the subject.-THE EDITORS.. C NOLLECTORS of novel occupations for women-how many they are, to be sure, and how conscientiously they scour the earth for things a woman might supposedly be able to do!-are lightly holding out the profession of landscape gardening as a congenial, soothing, out-of-doors pursuit to which a woman of taste, who loves flowers, cannot do better than turn her hand. Such counsel is taking sure effect, helped on, no doubt, by. the flood of "how-to" gardening books, in which the art seems to simmer down to a question whether to put sweet-peas here or nasturtiums there. Landscape architects tell me that they are continually besieged with letters from fair aspirants seeking advice how best to arm themselves for careers in the garden. And certainly scores of young women who do not get so far as this are talking of "taking up landscape gardening, for all the world as if it were a craft, like basketry or burntwood. These good ladies have commonly the most rudimentary notions as to the demands, the hardships, or the rewards of the profession. Herein they are in no worse case than their fathers and brothers. A well-known Boston architect assures me that an amazing number of otherwise sane, responsible business men come to him every year, saying: "I'm all worn out. I need a rest. Once upon a time I dug a rose-bush and it got on famously. Do you know, I've a notion to go in for landscape gardening !" Plainly it is time for a rational discussion of the subject. FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY THE J. HORACE M'FARLAND COMPANY "IN A LANDSCAPE GARDEN FLOWERS EXIST, IF AT ALL, FOR THE SAKE OF THE WHOLE EFFECT" A delightful vagueness seems to fill the public mind at the mention of landscape art—and, indeed, the profusion of sounding terms used by the profession does not conduce to clarity of thinking. We hear of landscape gardeners, landscape artists, landscape architects, and landscape designers. The reason for this is that the really professional men have flown distractedly from one term to another to avoid being confused with certain unprofessional quacks. For that word "landscape" is easily prefixed to the titles of canny gentlemen with an eye to dollars, when plain "gardener," or at most "horticulturist," would more accurately fit their case. The luckless public, however, not being in the secret, fancies it sees a distinction between terms which mean precisely the same thing. A young woman who would shrink affrighted from the thought of meddling with anything so ambitious as landscape architecture conceives herself quite capable of mastering the art of landscape gardening, which she supposes consists in the effective arrangement of flowers in beds, in gardens which exist for the sake of the flowers. Now in a landscape garden, if one may use the term, flowers exist, if at all, for the sake of the whole effect. To a true landscape gardener flowers, shrubs, trees, and shaven lawns are not so much things of beauty in themselves as pigments, masses of light and shade, textures, surfaces, with which he composes his outdoor pictures. The design's the thing the comprehensive scheme which takes the house with the grounds, or in park lands the varied elements in the scene, and coaxes them into one satisfying, harmonious whole. The design may be formal, as in the old French or Italian gardens, or, as is more likely in this country, it may be naturalistic, so that those of us not too familiar with nature in her untutored phases shall say with a sigh of pleasure that it looks as if it just grew. It is all one whether it be the grounds of a modest suburban villa, or a park, or a great country estate; it matters not whether the artist is called in before ever the land is bought that he may help to determine the site, select the best spot for the house, and consistently preserve and develop the most effective features in the scene, or whether, his advice being sought at the eleventh hour, he has to make what he can of the havoc left by contractors-the principle is the same. The art is one, though its problems are infinitely varied. And those who are carelessly contemplating "taking it up" had best face the fact that it is nothing less than the profession of the late Frederick Law Olmsted in which they are planning to dabble. Is there, then, no field for women here at all? The answer to that question is a gallant little group of women who have forged for themselves National reputations. It is a very little group, it is true, scarce half a dozen all told. And yet, considering the smallness of the body of men in the profession-the American Society of Landscape Architects, men and women together, numbers not half a hundred names-the showing is not so bad. Ask any notable landscape architectany man, I mean-what standing he gives to the work of the women in his profession, and he will tell you cordially enough that some of it at least will bear comparison with similar work by the best of the men. Having said so much, he will probably hasten to add a guarded doubt whether women will ever achieve success on a grand scale, whether they conceive largely enough to undertake public works like the laying out of great parks or the plotting of plans for new cities. 66 From this verdict the women themselves are little inclined to appeal. MissBeatrix Jones, of New York, doyenne of the profession in America, says: So far as I can learn from the present trend of things, it seems likely that for some time to come women's work will be almost entirely limited to that of a domestic character." (This although Miss Jones has herself some little public work, in the way of designs for squares or parks, to her credit.) Miss Martha Brown, also of New York, and another prominent member of the little group mentioned above, thinks that woman's skill and patience might be utilized in co-operation |