52 



LANDSCAPE DESIGN 



an independent historic style of landscape design, unless, perhaps, we 

 should except the cottage gardens. Just as English cottages and their 

 gardens had an unconscious similarity of form due to similar conditions, 

 there is a recognizable similarity of construction, though to a less degree, 

 among German cottages and gardens, and indeed some modern German 

 designers are finding part of their present inspiration in this old work.* 

 But the long-continued turbulence and destruction to which Germany 

 has been subject has left to modern times but comparatively few examples 

 of such prototypes. In larger designs, such recognizable style as there 

 has been in Germany has been first the Dutch, then the style of Le Notre, 

 then that of the ^'Englischer Garten.'^ In many cases these styles in 

 Germany appeared in ill-considered imitations of their originals ; but 

 as disciples of the landscape school, Germany has shown in Hirschfeld, 

 Sckell, and Prince Piickler von Muskau a conception of naturalistic 

 design which worthily matched the work of Repton and Price, and 

 largely inspired the naturalistic ideals of Petzold and of such a present- 

 day writer as Camillo Karl Schneider, f 



The modern German conscious seeking for national expression in 

 every field has had its influence on German landscape architecture 

 notably in the production of a formal style of landscape design, inten- 

 tionally different from any style which has gone before. In many 

 another style the artist has consciously adapted his means to his ends 

 to express the ideal which seemed to him of most worth, but here for 

 the first time landscape designers have gone deliberately to work to 

 determine what their national ideal ought to be and then logically 

 deduced what means should be employed for its attainment. To be 

 sure, there is easily traceable a strong influence from English landscape 

 designs,! but it has been accepted in general principle rather than 

 adopted exactly in any part, and the result is certainly an independent 



* For instance see Schultze-Naumburg's Kulturarbeiten, and the Introduction 

 by J. A. Lux to Volkstumliche Kunst, Ansichten von alten heimatlichen Bauformen, 

 Land- und Bauernhdusern, Hofen, Garten. . . Photographisch aufgenommen von 

 Martin Gerlach. (1904.) 



t See his Landschaftliche Gartengestaltung, p. 4. (See References.) 

 X Especially through the writings and designs of Hermann Muthesius. (See 

 References.) 



