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AMERICAN FORESTRY 



its design surely shows as comprehen- 

 sive adjustment of parts to a complete 

 whole as we can conceive. So it is 

 with an informal landscape design; so 

 long as it is logically conceived and con- 

 sistently maintained, so long as it 

 '"carries through" not only in feeling 

 but in actual structure, and so long as 

 it serves the purposes, practical and 

 esthetic, for which it is intended, it 

 matters little what it looks like on 

 paper. 



This brings me to another charge 

 against Central Park: that it is a suc- 

 cession of separate features pretty 

 enough in themselves, but not sequen- 

 tial nor connected by any big scheme 

 worthy in scale of the size of the tract, 

 not such as need the serious attention 

 of an artist to compose. If for the 

 abusive word pretty you substitute 

 "beautiful," half the sting is taken from 

 this severe arraignment. Again we 

 have an adjective which is a matter of 

 personal opinion. To me the scenes of 

 Central Park seems as beautiful as any 

 I know of their kind. Their relation 

 to each other is so well managed that 

 you cannot find where the line of sepa- 

 ration occurs, but pass imperceptibly 

 from one to the next. It is no reproach 

 to a large building that it consists of 

 many separate and relatively small 

 apartments whose connection w'ith each 

 other and with the whole and whose 

 importance as part of the whole can- 

 not be seen, but can only be demon- 

 strated by the convenience and efficiency 

 with which they serve the purposes of 

 the whole. Every building cannot be 

 a church or dance-hall, a building of 

 one roo n ; we must have our business 

 blocks, our hotels, our courthouses, and 

 so on, which do not admit of interior 

 grandeur in scale with the mass of the 

 structure. So with a park ; it may 

 serve more and better purposes by 

 being a succession of scenes adjusted 

 to the natural contours, aptly united 

 and rationally separated, than by being 

 constructed on a single motive apparent 

 at a glance. They who find a lack of 

 simplicity and dignity in Central Park 

 forget that it was made not only for 

 those in it, but for those over it, who 

 can look down on it from the sur- 



rounding buildings, the upper stories on 

 Fifth and Eighth Avenues and Fifty- 

 ninth and 110th Streets. Before them 

 opens a prospect of massed foliage, with 

 openings of green turf, and from some 

 parts of shining water, perhaps as su- 

 perbly simple as any formal scheme 

 that could be imagined. The fact is, a 

 good deal of this criticism rather savors 

 of ill-nature and calling names ; a thing 

 of which artists, wdio all live in glass 

 houses, should be very careful. The 

 next stone may be thrown at your 

 liouse or mine, and we cannot get it 

 mended because we cannot prove either 

 that we are right or that the other is 

 wrong; we have no means of demon- 

 strating the beauty or justness of our 

 work as a building inspector can demon- 

 strate good or bad work, or as a watch 

 can be shown to be well made, to any- 

 body's satisfaction, by merely keeping 

 time. We all depend for approval or 

 disapproval on the body of opinion, and 

 nearly all criticism can be boiled down 

 to "I think that" or "it seems to me." 

 I think that the design of Central Park 

 is, all things considered, and allowing 

 for certain imperfections, very good ; 

 but I cannot demonstrate its excellence 

 except in the same way that I can 

 demonstrate the excellence of design of 

 Michael Angelo's Last Judgment, or a 

 landscape of Corot. 



Inasmuch as most artists nowadays 

 are educated in schools of art, and 

 emerge therefrom supported by the con- 

 fidence and authority of their school, 

 it is usually assumed that such training 

 is necessary to produce an artist. But 

 in all arts there have been men of emi- 

 nence without conventional training, 

 and notablv so in landscape design. 

 No more striking ins^tances of the self- 

 evolution of natural gifts can lie found 

 than in the designers of Central Park, 

 Frederick Law Olmstead and Calvert 

 Vaux. \^aux was an Englishman who 

 had turned to landscape design through 

 natural preference, and the extent and 

 value of whose work was never ])opu- 

 larly known, and perhaps never will be. 

 Judging by the quality of what he did 

 alone, he was one of those who have 

 found what they are sent into the world 

 to do. As for Olmstead himself, it is 



