The Golden State: Where & How to Live, Secure, Visit, Enjoy and Thrive in California
Art Of Landscape Architecture
The philosophy of the development of lawn planting has come in the present day to mean far more than it did in the days of our fathers, in spite of the fact that the modern period appears to be one of fads and faddists, of Italian and old-fashioned gardens, of blue spruces and yellow Japan cypresses. In the eighteenth century there was little difference between the landscape architect and the architect; indeed it was the architect and gardener who generally designed the entire place. The name landscape architect was unknown.
Today we have an outdoor art of many cultures, notably architectural and horticultural, the antagonisms of which have produced a play of forces which has tended to break up into various parts the formal and rigid landscape rules of classic and mediaeval times. Extravagances of many kinds have naturally made themselves evident, yet these very antagonisms are doing good work; giving renewed and vivid life to landscape gardening and thrusting its roots deeper and deeper towards the heart of nature. Every part of outdoor art is coming to have its place, never quite its perfect place, but nearer and nearer to the highest standards. Antagonisms always lead to continually renewed activity and larger fruitfulness. Although antagonism sometimes means conquest and even defeat and death of a sort, it is only a case of dying to live and to reach heights of accomplishment previously inconceivable.
Maintenance
IT is quite impossible to plant a large extensive park so that it can present the same picture when full grown as it did at the beginning, only on an altered scale, and the objects in it are for ever after in the right relation to one another,—since nature cannot be calculated so accurately and it would also take too much time.
"Here we meet with the drawback of our art, in a certain sense—though it may also be regarded as an advantage. For it is impossible to create a finished, permanent work of art in landscape gardening, such as the painter, sculptor, and architect are able to produce, because our material is not inanimate, but living; we can say of the landscape gardener's art, as of all nature's own pictures, as Fichte said of the German language, "It is about to be, but never is." That is, it never stands still, can never be fixed and left to itself. Hence a skilful guiding hand is always necessary for works of this kind. If the hand is lacking too long they not only deteriorate, they become something quite different, but if the hand is present, beauties are continually being added without losing or sacrificing those already in existence. "
