TASTE, IDEALS, STTLE, CHARACTER 29 



more than the recurrence of certain forms of decoration, the choice of 

 certain trees, or the repetition of certain stock arrangements of ele- 

 ments.* The style of a good designer will be characterized rather, for 

 instance, by a severe simplicity and a directness of meeting the needs 

 of his problem, by a delightful and somewhat whimsical play of fancy, 

 or by a reverence for and sympathetic interpretation of certain laws of 

 nature. In many cases his work may be so truly a work of art that it 

 conveys to the beholder very directly the pleasure which the designer 

 felt in the particular mode of organization which he, as it were, recom- 

 mends to the world by his design, and this pleasure will seem to be the 

 essence of the style. A powerful personal style readily finds imitators, 

 and it may thus come to be, like that of Le Notre in France, like that 

 of Olmsted in America, the nucleus about which an historic style 

 crystallizes. 



When we talk of historic styles in landscape design we mean the Historic 

 typical modes of esthetic organization which characterize the differ- %^'^-f 

 ent kinds of landscape design which men have done in the past. Let 

 us see on what fundamental circumstances these modes of organiza- 

 tion must depend. All landscape designs differ essentially according 

 to three factors in their making: first, their physical environment, — 

 the topography, country, climate, vegetation, materials of construc- 

 tion, f and so on; second, the people who make them and for whom 

 they are made, — their nationality, traditions, tastes, training, and 

 other social conditions ; and third, really the product of the first and 

 second factors, their function, the purpose for which they are made, — 

 for producing flowers, fruits, or vegetables, for pleasure in design only, 

 for comfort, for magnificence and display, or for whatever satisfaction 

 the designer may seek under the circumstances. It is impossible to 



* " We content ourselves, only too usually, in art, with the externals of a foreign 

 style, and are satisfied, if we can say, ' that is Greek,' ' that is Gothic,' although 

 without doubt, if a Greek artist, or one from the Middle Ages, should rise from the dead, 

 he would shake his head doubtfully at our doings. He would probably say to us : 

 ' It does not matter what we have made, but hozv we have made it.' " 



Translated from Lothar Abel's Gartenarchitektur, 1876, p. 15, quoting Jakob Falke. 



t For a discussion of materials as motiving style in the arts, see Gottfried Semper's 

 Der Stil in der technischen und tektonischen Kiinsten, or Prinzhorn's dissertation upon 

 Semper's work. 



