DECORATIVE USE OF WATER 



design combined with a thorough comprehension of scale in land- 

 scape. The principles outlined by such writers as Repton or Price 

 in reference to large informal bodies of water, when applied without 

 regard to scale, will give amusing results, as may be seen in some of 

 the Holland parks where a single glance includes both bay and 

 recess of shoreline. When elements which should be held separate 

 are viewed thus simultaneously, the impression produced is that of 

 Japanese or children's gardening. Vienna park designers appear to 

 have been aware of such possible pitfalls, and never to have reduced 

 the scale of informal water in the parks to danger of the absurd. 



INCONGRUOUS WATER SUPPLY 



In this connection, water pools of naturalistic outline should never 

 be fed by formal playing fountains, for such combination of formal 

 and informal is an incongruity. If the water supply is to be featured, 

 it must be done by means of a natural appearing brook or cascade, 

 apparently coming from some flowing spring or other source, which 

 may be concealed to prevent close examination and yet maintain the 

 effect of realism desired. The most familiar illustration of incon- 

 gruous combination of formal and informal water is that of the Ken- 

 sington Gardens in Hyde Park, London, where a single fountain, of 

 considerable flow, to be sure, appears to be the source of water supply 

 for the entire serpentine lake, — and even to the lay mind suggests that 

 somebody blundered. In contradistinction is the lagoon of Stephens 

 Green, Dublin, which is liberally supplied by a waterfall fifteen feet 

 high by twenty wide, the source of which is invisible and the supply 

 pipes for which are so concealed that few observers are aware of its 

 artificiality. The grotto and canal feeding the lily pond in Villa 

 Pamphilj at Rome, although a formal inlet to a naturalistic body of 

 water, are not out of keeping because in that case apparently a natural 

 water supply has been rendered formal. 



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