The Golden State: Where & How to Live, Secure, Visit, Enjoy and Thrive in California

Landscape Gardening

This, of course, means the leaving of open vistas along well-chosen lines. The lines which are thus to be left open, as well as all the long vistas or perspectives which are to be preserved inside the grounds, should be marked first on the paper plans, and as the plans are developed all obstructions may be kept off them. Again, when the plans arc being worked out on the grounds these open lines should be carefully marked and the plantings kept at a proper distance.

Motive

What makes a garden? Flowers, grass and trees, Odor, grace and color: Lovely gifts like these.
Caroline Giltinan.
Motive, theme, subject are all names given to the one principle, namely the principle that each work of art must have one idea. In high schools and colleges pupils write "themes"; and this metonymy plainly signifies that the subject matter is considered the most important feature of the exercise. Each essay must be written about one "theme," and all irrelevant matter must be strictly excluded. So the theme, subject or motive of this student essay may be dairying, the tariff in politics, George Washington or golf; but an essay without a theme would be pure foolishness.

In exactly the same way the musician uses themes. He calls them either themes or motives; sometimes he even speaks of them as subjects. In music a theme is that central recognizable figure which runs through the whole composition and the development of which is the chief concern of the composer.

In painting the use of themes or motives is as obvious as in literature. In short, we are to consider the selection and development of themes as a vital necessity in all branches of art, including landscape architecture.
But what does a theme in landscape architecture look like? Would we know one if we saw it? Let us answer this by two illustrations.

For the first let us suppose that we have a park of 40 acres on which the white pine is the predominating growth. Good landscape design would immediately suggest that we make this species the chief feature of our development. So we first of all cut out scattering weed-trees and bushes which obscure the pines or hinder their growth, and next we give ourselves to the unqualified cultivation of the chosen favorite. Now we endeavor to make the most of this motive by developing it in a variety of ways. At one point we preserve a fine picturesque single specimen of old seed pine; at another we form a group of normal mature trees; at a third point we show a broad mass of the young trees luxuriantly growing, with their soft, silky, gray-green foliage; and somewhere within this park we will of course want a dense stand of large trees, with a heavy carpet of needles beneath our feet, where we may enjoy the serene beauty of that special picture. So in various ways we exhibit the versatile beauties of the white pine motive.