32 



Hints on Landscape Gardening 



posed, lest they appear as spots, unconnected wiih 

 the natural surroundings. Concealment enhances 

 beautv, and here something should always be left 

 to the imagination. The eye frequently finds 

 more pleasure in a single chimney in the dis- 

 tance, with its spiral of gray smoke curling up- 

 ward against a background of trees, than in a 

 bare palace exposed to view on all sides, which 

 Nature has not yet lovingly approached and err- 

 _i^ braced. It is highly important that buildings 

 ' should always take on the character of the lane- 

 scape in which they figure.' Many of our Ger- 

 man architects regard this too little. Buildings in 

 a city, for instance, must be different from build- 

 ings in a park. In the one case they are com- 

 plete in themselves ; in the other, they are only 

 a component part of the whole and are depend- 

 ent on it for picturesque effect, which they in 

 turn are also called upon to produce; hence their 

 effect in the landscape must be carefully studied. 

 In general, a certain irregularity is preferable 

 in buildings in a park, as being more in conform- 

 ity with Nature and more picturesque. A temple 

 devoted to a cult, a theater, a museum devoted 

 to art, doubtless demand symmetry and a more 

 severe style, but the mansion or villa gains by 

 greater irregularity, in comfort as well as in pic- 

 turesqueness. This same principle appears in the 



' A contrast may ^Iso occasionally fit in with the character of the 

 whole, but it must always harmonize, as I have pointed out in the ex- 

 ample in the last section : the sublimity of wild nature and magnificent 

 art. A pretty villa would not be a fitting contrast, while an imposing 

 ruin would present an analogy, but no contrast. 



