122 LANDSCAPE DESIGN 



Here again the line between the deliberate creation of a false impres- 

 sion and the reasonable enhancement of existing natural character is a 

 fine one, and not always easy or profitable to draw. 

 Landscape As we have already seen, a landscape architect in determining the 



ompositions esthetic effects of a composition considers first what its pictorial effect 

 will be upon an observer from a given position. Of course in his actual 

 construction of his design he is inevitably concerned with the location 

 of his objects in three dimensions, but since it is mainly through the 

 two-dimensional picture or series of pictures which the eye receives 

 that the actual objects may be perceived, it is mainly by the beauty 

 perceived and inferred through these pictures that the esthetic excel- 

 lence of the actual work will be judged. Where the designer is creat- 

 ing a definitely unified object like a formal inclosed garden or like a 

 shrub-and-tree-surrounded lawn, he may trust the observer to walk 

 about in it, to receive many visual impressions from it, and at length 

 to acquire from them all some definite idea of the unity and beauty 

 of the whole. Even in such a case, however, there will be certain views 

 which are particularly attractive, particularly characteristic, and the 

 designer will do what he can to impress these upon the observer to the 

 comparative neglect of other views less effective. In an informal or a 

 naturalistic landscape, not having any geometrical total unity of shape 

 to be understood by walking through it and observing it, but having 

 on the contrary a total unity of character, or a certain definite char- 

 acteristic sort of beauty, this character or beauty will be perceived 

 at its best in certain views, and will appear to less advantage in others, 

 and it will be necessary for the designer to work out with care the 

 two-dimensional pictorial aspect of his design as seen from these im- 

 portant viewpoints and to do everything that he can to lead the spec- 

 tators to enjoy his work from these viewpoints, and to judge its char- 

 acter and its excellence by these selected views seen in an effective 

 sequence. 



In most of the landscape architect's designs, which consist of a 

 number of separate units each serving its own purpose, economic or 

 esthetic — like the various parts of a country estate, for instance — 

 the pictorial compositions will be obtained in the ways just mentioned. 

 Some views will be comprised entirely within some one portion of the 



