42 LA NDSCAPE DESIGN 



skill in the use of shaded and sunny areas enhancing each other; a 

 feeling for the inspiration of the open, distant view, and for the increasing 

 of its effect by a foreground of shaded arcade or bosquet ; a feeling for 

 the unity of the whole villa and its contrast with the surrounding 

 country, evinced by the definite wall between the gardens and the 

 surrounding vineyards below, by the sharp contrast of the outside 

 forest with the architectural terrace which it backs and enframes ; a 

 very notable feeling for formal design in outdoor objects, and with it 

 the artistic sense not to carry schematic regularity of plan further than 

 it is actually effective in the design, a mistake which besets us modern 

 designers of the T-square and triangle. 



It so happens that in the native vegetation of Italy there are a 

 number of trees that are singularly well adapted to take their place in a 

 formal design : the cypress, because of its symmetrical shape and heavi- 

 ness and density of foliage, and the stone pine and the ilex for their 

 equally definite and dense texture and for their striking character. 

 (See again Drawing I, and also Drawing XIV, opp. p. 1 12.) Doubtless 

 the choice of the designs was somewhat motived by the properties of 

 these materials, but it is undeniable that the vegetation and the archi- 

 tecture of the Italian gardens form a complete and esthetically sufficient 

 whole to a degree that can be matched in few other styles. 

 The Style of When Le Notre undertook the design of Versailles, after his successes 



Le Notre ^t Vaux and Chantilly, the social conditions of France were in one 



respect similar to those in Italy which we have just discussed. The 

 great nobles, each with his own estate and with command of great 

 resources, vied with each other in magnificence and display ; but where 

 Italy was broken into a multitude of warring states, France was already 

 a great nation ; and it was the paramount magnificence of the King of 

 France that Le Notre was called upon to express. In previous times the 

 grounds about the French chateaux had been self-contained units as 

 they were in Italy, for similar reasons ; but at this time there was no 

 necessity for inclosure for defense. Further, in the damp climate of 

 France great areas of ground might be cultivated or grown to wood 

 without prohibitive cost, and in the comparatively flat land in which 

 most of the great gardens were situated, there was no better way of 

 expressing grandeur than by the effect of almost unlimited extent. ^ (See 



