JOURNAL OF RURAL ART AND RURAL TASTE. 



€)^t fouixiM in §xmA 



'^HJE have sketched, in a former volume, the elements of the Beautiful in a Tree. 

 ^^ Let us glance for a few moments at the Beautiful in Ground, 



We may have readers who think themselves not devoid of some taste for nature, 

 hut who have never thought of looking for beauty in the mere surface of the earth — 

 whether in a natural landscape, or in ornamental grounds. Their idea of beauty is, 

 for the most part, attached to the foliage and verdure, the streams of water, the high 

 hills and the deep valleys, that make up the landscape. A meadow is to them but a 

 meadow, and a ploughed field is but the same thing in a rough state. And yet, there 

 is a great and enduring interest, to a refined and artistic eye, in the mere surface of the 

 ground. There is a sense of pleasure awakened by the pleasing lines into which yon- 

 der sloping bank of turf steals away from the eye, and a sense of ugliness and harsh- 

 ness, by the raw and broken outline of the abandoned quarry on the hill-side, which 

 hardly any one can be so obtuse as not to see and feel. . Yet, the finer gradations are 

 nearly overlooked, and the charm of beautiful surfece in a lawn is seldom or ever con- 

 sidered, in selecting a new site, or improving an old one. 



We believe artists and men of taste have agreed that all forms of acknowledged 

 beauty are composed of curved lines ; and we may add to this, that the more gentle 

 and gradual the curves, or rather the farther they are removed from those hard and 

 forcible lines which denote violence, the more beautiful are they. The principle ap- 

 plies as well to the surface of the earth, as to other objects. The most beautiful shape 

 in ground is that where one undulation melts gradually and insensibly into another. 

 Every one who has observed scenery where the foregrounds were remarkable for beau- 

 ty, must have been struck by this prevalence of curved lines ; and every landscape 

 gardener well knows, that no grassy surface is so captivating to the eye, as one where 

 these gentle swells and undulations rise and melt away gradually into one another. 

 Some poet, happy in his fancy, has called such bits of grassy slopes and swells. 



Mahch 1, 1852. 



No. III. 



