April 24, 1909 



HORTICULTUKE 



589 



Art in the Garden 



iContinutd from /■ugt S27) 



FAULTY EDUCATION 



In these days schools of art are to be found in almost 

 every city, but it is to be feared that these do not always 

 foster true artistic feeling, as they give so little encour- 

 agement to the observation of nature. No doubt these 

 schools are productive of good in certain directions as 

 they assist in producing persons capable of designing 

 useful decorative work and the adapting pf geometrical 

 forms to various articles of use and ornament. But 

 skill and cleverness in this work may exist without any 

 true artistic feeling; in fact the latter is usually dis- 

 couraged by the system pursued at these institutions. 



Whatever opinion one may have of the methods of 

 decorating the interiors of our homes, there can be noth- 

 ing but condemnation when this decorative process of 

 geometrical patterns is brought into the garden, thereby 

 causing the foregrounds of beautiful scenery to be 

 daubed with flower beds formed like a piece of linoleum. 



Beauty is not attained by simply filling a garden with 

 beautiful flowers. The total effect of a garden so filled 

 is often marred by the separate effect of its contents. 

 One may have an artistic garden, or a botanical garden 

 — a museum of plants, or a garden like a figured carpet, 

 but not all at the same time. 



FOEMALITY DESTEUCTIVE OF REAL BEAUTY 



The merely decorative ideas of gardeners have often 

 marred our gardens by means of what are known as 

 "carpet-bedding," "mosaic culture," and the "bedding- 

 out" system; in these the natural beauties of plants are 

 lowered to the level of mere color designs, without any 

 reference to the habits and characters of the plants 

 themselves, dipping being generally resorted to for the 

 purpose of keeping the patterns geometrical. No one 

 who is a lover of flowers and who is capable of seeing 

 beauty in nature, would allow his garden to be dese- 

 crated by this tracery work. 



William Morris in his "Hopes and Fears for Art" 

 wrote thus in connection with this subject: "Another 

 thing also much too commonly seen is an aberration of 

 the human mind, which otherwise I should liave been 

 ashamed to warn you of. It is technically called "car- 

 pet-bedding." Need I explain it further? I had 

 rather not, for when I think of it, even when alone, I 

 blush with shame at the thought." This kind of dec- 

 oration seems to have been introduced and kept up as a 

 manifestation of a gorgeous and highly elaborate style 

 of gardening — a style which suggests the thought of 

 enormous cost and enormous labor. 



THE CHARM OF SIMPLICITY 



If an artist wants a subject for a painting he never 

 goes to a garden of this kind. No true artist would 

 prostitute his brush by portraying these "aberrations of 

 human intellect." If he wishes for a beautiful picture 

 he goes along rural byways and there finds many exam- 

 ples of the beautifying effect of flowers being allowed to 

 grow as nature designed they should, and in these cases 

 sees artistic expression based upon the best foundation, 

 viz., simplicity. It was the charm of simplicity which 

 made many of the old-fashioned gardens so restful alike 

 to the eye and brain. In this I do not include the old 

 topiary work — another aberration of the human mind, 

 copied from the Italians and introduced when people 

 were limited to only a few species of shrubs — which is 

 nothing but a brutal murdering of the beautiful forms 

 of trees, mere barbering in fact. 



In striving to surround a country home with beautiful 



effects we must keep simplicity and naturalness, as op- 

 posed to formalness, continually in our mind's eye. If 

 one sees a garden remarkable for its precision, the strict- 

 ly geometrical sequence of its flower beds, trees closely 

 clippd for the purpose of "harmonizing with the house," 

 and a general air of stiffness pervading the entire sur- 

 roundings, it may be passed at once with contempt as it 

 has no artistic value. 



THERE IS NO ABSOLUTE RULE 



Many gardens of this description are designed in a 

 building architect's office and are supposed to "fit the 

 house." In all probability the same plan has been used 

 for many other gardens, and it is a fact that they are 

 often drawn without the designer ever seeing the spot 

 beforehand, or having anything before him except- the 

 plan of the house. It is a great mistake to suppose 

 there is such a thing as strict rule in landscaping which 

 is capable of being applied to all sorts of situations. 

 Every home and its surroundings invites its own plan, 

 which when executed should give the property added 

 charms of originality, variety, and character. Conven- 

 tionalism is entirely out of place in a garden, and it is 

 quite impossible to make a design which will fit every 

 situation. 



Artistic landscape architecture will never become capa- 

 ble of being governed by stereotyped rules and regula- 

 tions, except that what Euskin wrote may be safely laid 

 down as an axiom, "Nothing is great as a work of art 

 for the production of which either rules or models can 

 be given." The more the laying out of gardens is 

 guided by rules, or fashion, 'the less it becomes an art 

 and the more a manufacture. 



THE BANE OF MONOTONY 



Apart from artistic considerations pure and simple, 

 there is also the monotony which is to be found in many 

 gardens which is so painful, and which does away with 

 the possibility of finding any restful, refreshing feeling 

 in them. It must never be forgotten that change 

 and variety are as much a necessity in gardens to satisfy 

 the esthetic perceptions, to raise pleasurable emotions in 

 the heart and mind, as in books, a gallery of paintings 

 or sculpture. We can no more expect to derive pleasure 

 from a monotonous garden where the bedding is princi- 

 pally on one pattern, than we should from a universe in 

 which clouds, hills, and trees were all of one shape and 

 size. There is nothing satisfying nor lasting about 

 artificiality. 



The botanical system of Linnaeus, for instance, a 

 splendid contribution to human knowledge which did 

 more in its day to enlarge the view of the vegetable king- 

 dom than anything before it, was a purely artificial sys- 

 tem. But all artificial systems must sooner or later 

 pass away. None knew better than the great Swedish 

 botanij^t liimself that his system, being artificial, was 

 but provisional. Nature must be read in her own light, 

 and as the botanical field became more cultivated the 

 system of Jussieu and De Candolle slowly emerged, un- 

 folding itself as naturally as the petals of one of its own 

 flowers, and, forcing itself upon men's intelligence as the 

 very voice of nature, supplanted the Linnsan system 

 forever. 



PERNICIOUS FASHION 



Not only is the lack of variety between different parts 

 of a garden bad in itself, but with stereotyped bedding 

 and geometrical borders all gardens become more or less 

 alike; especially when a certain style is, for the time 

 being, fasliionable. In these cases there is not only a 

 depressing monotony in our own garden, but when we 

 visit others we find much the same thing; whereas when 



