THE ENGLISH FLOWER GARDEN. 



the work of Alfred Parsons and a few others we see the beginning of 

 things of beauty in the painting of gardens, but it is for us gardeners 

 to commence by first being artists ourselves, and opening our eyes to 

 see the ugly things about us. 



Artists of real power would paint gardens and home landscapes if 

 there were real pictures to draw ; but generally they are so rare that 

 the work does not come into the artist's view at all. Through all 

 the rage of the " bedding-out " fever, it was impossible for an artist 

 to paint in a garden like those which disfigured the land from Blair 

 Athol to the Crystal Palace. It is difficult to imagine Corot sitting 

 down to paint the Grande Trianon, or the terrace patterns at Versailles, 

 though a poor hamlet in the North of France, with a few willows 

 near, gave him a lovely picture. Once, when trying to persuade 

 Mr. Mark Fisher, the landscape painter, to come into a district 

 remarkable for its natural beauty, he replied : " There are too many 

 gentlemen's places there to suit my work," referring to the hardness 

 and ugliness of the effects around most country seats, owing to the 

 iron-bound pudding-clumps of trees, railings, capricious clippings and 

 shearings, bad colours, and absence of fine and true form, with, almost 

 certainly, an ugly house in the midst of all. But we ought to be able 

 to do better than be makers of garden scarecrows to the very men 

 who would enjoy our work most, and delight in painting it, rich as 

 we are in the sources of beauty of tree or flower. 



