Chapter IV 



Grouping in General , and Buildings 



IN a landscape to be created, nearly all objects, 

 large as well as small, call for a well-considered 

 grouping. The best guide here is innate taste. 

 Later on I will give some instructions as re- 

 gards details, and will formulate here only the 

 following general rule: If the lights and shadows 

 are arranged in due proportion in the picture, the 

 grouping as a whole will be successful. Grass- 

 plots, water, and fields, which do not themselves 

 throw any shadow, but only receive it from 

 other objects, are lights in the hands of the 

 landscape artist, while trees, forests, and houses 

 (and rocks where they can be used) must serve 

 as shadows. The unpleasant effect should be 

 avoided of restlessness and dispersion arising 

 from an excess of detail and too much inter- 

 rupted light; and, on the other hand, the pic- 

 ture should not be darkened by a few immense 

 blotches of shadow, nor should the meadows and 

 the water present too great an expanse of level 

 space, but should be laid out so as to be lost to 

 view here and there in dark groups of vegetation, 

 or so as to appear suddenly as carefully calcu- 

 lated points of light amid the darker ground- 

 work. Buildings should never stand freely ex- 



