LANDSCAPE EFFECTS y? 



Landscape effects are as various as the scenes which cause them, Variety of 

 as various as the men who behold the scenes, but out of this infinity l^^j}dscafe 

 of observations men have found that certain fairly definite kinds of 

 emotional experience can be distinguished and named and discussed. 

 The names which we find ourselves using for landscape effects are really 

 never very exact in meaning, and are merely names for a dominant 

 emotional result which, being present in a number of experiences, 

 makes them sufficiently alike to be talked of as a class. 



The writers of the late eighteenth century put great emphasis on Literary 

 the value of effects in design, and carried the discussion and classifica- Discussions of 

 tion of effects into considerable detail ; in the latter part of the period. Effects 

 indeed, carrying it to extremes. We find in various writings of the 

 period a stereotyped enumeration of certain effects as pertaining to 

 certain scenes, and in some of the designs which these writings influ- 

 enced, Romantic symbolism was carried to absurdity.* A great many 

 different effects were recognized. Some of them, simply designated 

 by the name of the emotion which they caused, were definite enough to 

 be discussed without confusion. But the more subtle and compli- 

 cated effects were differently felt and differently named by the various 

 writers, with the result that a considerable confusion and much vigorous 

 discussion arose because of lack of definition of terms. 



Two categories of effects, however, stand out as being of particular The "Beauti- 

 importance in all this discussion : — on the one hand, those effects 1"^" ^^'^ '^^ 

 which are associated with smooth and rounded objects, with soft- fsque" 

 textured surfaces, with flowing lines, with sequential arrangements of 

 form, — scenes, that is, in which the attention passes from object to 

 object easily, by short stages, without sudden arresting of the atten- 

 tion by any object in the composition ; on the other hand, those ef- Their 

 fects which are associated with violent contrast of light and shade, of ^""'^^'"'"'"^ 

 color, of form, with harsh and coarse textures, with angular shapes, 

 and with very individual objects, — scenes in which the interest is 

 powerfully attracted by the characteristics of the objects, and where 

 the attention passes, as it were, by a sudden leap from one feature in 



* See Chapter IV", section on the Romantic landscape style (p. 45). Compare 

 the description of a garden designed to produce a series of violently contrasting emo- 

 tions given in Triggs, Garden Craft in Europe, 1913, p. 304-305. (See References.) 



