LANDSCAPE EFFECTS 83 



It is to be noticed that landscape effects often depend objectively Effects from 

 on transitory conditions like light and shade, hour of day, weather, and ^my^P^y 

 season. (See again Plate 20, and also Plate 11.) A landscape of rocky 

 upland country about a mountain tarn might be mysterious in a day 

 of low-drifting clouds, stern or desolate in a storm, and perhaps on a 

 bright breez}^ spring morning even gay. 



In the larger landscape designs which are necessarily divided into Harmony and 

 a number of separate scenes,* and where the observer comes to one Contrast in 

 scene with the memory of the previous scene still fresh in his mind, it 

 is to be noticed that this memory is practically the landscape effect of 

 the previously beheld scene, and that therefore in the total effect of the 

 whole design the sequence and the nature of the subordinate effects 

 must be a matter of careful study. f A broad outlook from a hillside 

 is well led up to by a walk through a deep and gloomy wood. The 



quality wherever the eye seeks to penetrate the depths of the wood ; while in other 

 parts the undergrowth has been so completely removed that the eye ranges freely in 

 every direction amongst a rather monotonous succession of bare trunks and through 

 them to the open spaces or to the buildings that lie beyond. In either case there is 

 a loss of that enticing mystery and that feeling of indefinite extension inviting one 

 to wander from glade to opening glade which forms one of the most charming and 

 refreshing qualities of sylvan scenery. . . . Glades of turf with moss and other low 

 ground cover plants, free from bush and brambles that impede the foot and from 

 foliage at a height that obstructs the vision, ought to lead into the woods like narrow 

 extensions of the adjoining meadows, disappearing out of sight around a bend of denser 

 undergrowth on either side in a manner to invite exploration, branching irregularly 

 into other glades, widening here and there as the disposition of the larger trees may sug- 

 gest, forming at some points dark shady tunnels that widen out beyond into sunny but 

 secluded openings in the heart of the woods. There is need of skilfully developing intri- 

 cacy, mystery and harmonious variety in the composition of glades and thickets, and 

 of light within the shade ; and at the same time and by the same means of developing 

 such conditions as will lead great numbers of people to wander in comfort and safety 

 through the pleasant labyrinth." 



From F. L. Olmsted, Jr.'s unpublished report to the City Plan Commission, 

 Detroit, Mich., March 19, 1915. 



* See Chapter V, p. 71. 



t "Gardening indeed possesses one advantage, never to be equalled in the other 

 art [architecture] : in various scenes, it can raise successively all the different emotions." 



Henry Home, Lord Kames, Elements of Criticism, from Chapter XXV, Gardening 

 and Architecture. 



