STTLES OF LANDSCAPE DESIGN 



43 



Drawing IX, opp. p. 78.) There had been great open parterres before 

 the days of Le Notre, there had been great gardens consisting of different 

 treatments of rectangular units more or less intervisible, and Le Notre 

 doubtless felt the barrenness of one and the confusion of the other. 

 The method which he adopted to produce the desired effect of great 

 extent was that of the allee through a wood, an arrangement not new 

 to be sure, but never constructed before on so vast a scale. His system 

 of allees at Versailles has the additional advantages of connecting various 

 points of interest throughout the wood, giving a succession of different 

 vistas as a visitor passes from one axially-placed fountain to another, 

 and separating the different bosquets, each of which is thus allowed to 

 be treated in a distinctive way. It is hard to imagine that any other 

 scheme could have produced upon a flat topography so successful a 

 combination of a multitude of subordinate different details and an 

 enormous simplicity and spaciousness of general effect. 



Next the garden facade of the chateau of Versailles, the great parterre 

 serves as a setting for the building, a place for the display in open sun- 

 light of the various decorative designs in bright-colored flowers, in 

 which the people of the time were so much interested, and as a place 

 in which might congregate the crowds of gay courtiers, who filled the 

 gardens on state occasions and without whom these great open spaces 

 were always incomplete. 



The many different sculptors who designed the carved vases of the 

 terraces, the cast bronze and marble statues of the pools and fountains, 

 the busts and pedestals which adorn and define the allees, produced 

 work which was in almost every instance excellent of its kind and appro- 

 priate to its place, and which goes far to give to the whole scheme an 

 air of lavish expenditure but restrained and refined taste which is no 

 small part of the total effect. (See Drawing V, opp. p. 44.) 



Even with the great resources at the command of Louis XIV, it 

 was impossible to keep a constant supply of running water for the 

 fountains, particularly as the more important fountains, being in scale 

 with the rest of the grandiose design, are in themselves very large and 

 discharge an enormous amount of water. Moreover the land was 

 essentially flat, and any display of water in such form as cascades was 

 therefore particularly difficult. The arrangements of water which 



