The Golden State: Where & How to Live, Secure, Visit, Enjoy and Thrive in California
Art Of Landscape Architecture
There are periods of seeming deadness in the development of landscaping as of other things, but there need be no despondency for "there is never real regression in history (or in landscape gardening), but only contradictions that follow upon solutions given and prepare new ones."
The Laying Out Of A Park Or Estate
LAYING out grounds, as it is called, may be considered as a liberal art, in some sort, like poetry or painting; and its object like that of the liberal arts is, or ought to be, to move the affections under the control of good sense; that is those of the best and wisest; but speaking with more precision, it is to assist nature in moving the affections, and surely, as I have said, the affections of those who have the deepest perception of the beauty of nature; who have the most valuable feelings, that is the most permanent, and most independent, the most ennobling, connected with nature and human life. No liberal art aims merely at the gratification of an individual or a class: the painter or poet is degraded in proportion as he does so; the true servants of the arts pay homage to the human kind as impersonated in unwarped, enlightened minds. If this be so when we are merely putting together words or colours, how much more ought the feeling to prevail when we are in the midst of the realities of things; of the beauty and harmony, of the joys and happiness of living creatures; of men and children, of birds and beasts, of hills and streams, and trees and flowers; with the changes of night and day, evening and morning, summer and winter; and all their unwearied actions and energies, as benign in the spirit that animates them, as beautiful and grand in the form and clothing which is given to them for the delight of our senses."
All parks and even the smallest ornamental ground should indicate at once the presence of a controlling scheme of design. It is not a question of size; there should be everywhere, no matter what the size, entire artistic unity.
A. J. Downing, in his work on landscape gardening, says:
"Unity or the production of the whole is a leading principle of the highest importance in every art of taste or design, without which no satisfactory result can be realized. This arises from the fact that the mind can only attend with pleasure and satisfaction to one object or one composite sensation at the same time. If two distinct objects or classes of objects present themselves at once to us, we can only attend satisfactorily to one, by withdrawing our attention for the time from the other. Hence, the necessity of a reference to this leading principle of unity”.
