Untro^uction 37 



M. Edouard Andre, who has been called the "most 

 judicious and successful exponent of landscape garden- 

 ing in France" by a high authority, writes thus: 



(^" Under the false pretext that lawns, waters, trees, 

 and flowers are always pleasant, they have substi- 

 tuted for the old geometrical garden a still more arti- 

 ficial styleA The former at least avowed its aim to 

 show the hand of man and to master nature. The 

 latter borrows the elements of nature, and under the 

 pretence of imitating it, makes it play a ridiculous 

 — I was going to say an effeminate — part. It is not 

 — we say it emphatically — it is not this that consti- 

 tutes landscape art. If art seeks means of action in 

 nature, it is in order to turn them to account in a 

 simple and noble way. " 



Mr. Olmsted in his Spoils of the Park further says : 



vin Paris this kind of 'natural' gardening re- 

 ceived a great impetus in the days of Napoleon 

 III ibecause of the striking and spectacular effects 

 it quickly produced by the profuse use of certain 

 novel, exotic, and sickly forms of vegetation/' 



\Unfortunately this style of landscape gardening per- 

 sists more than it should down to the present day in 

 Paris, and elsewhere in France, and for that matter 

 in all the principal capitals of Europe.^ 



In view of the great body of doctrine set forth in the 

 following pages it will be evident that there should be 



