44 LANDSCAPE DESIGN 



Le Notre used most effectively at Versailles were the broad water 

 mirrors of the upper terrace, the mile-long canal decorating the great 

 axial vista, and permitting gay barges to be rowed about, and the 

 separate fountain basins which, though they were more decorative 

 when the water was playing, were still interesting when it was not. 



In France there is no long-lived tree of a distinctive shape like the 

 cypress, nor many trees of possible common use with so noticeable a 

 character as the stone pine or ilex of Italy. In Le Notre's designs, the 

 larger trees were used practically not at all as units in the design as 

 the Italians sometimes used their cypresses, but rather as a canopy of 

 shade, a mass of green, bounding the parterres and overarching the 

 allees. Of smaller trees, like the bay and the orange in tubs, as in 

 many Italian schemes, there was no lack (see Drawing X, opp. p. 80), 

 and the great orangery at Versailles thus rendered necessary found 

 convenient location under the south wing of the great terrace to which 

 its arched entrances gave interest and architectural completeness. 



Le Notre was called upon through nearly fifty years of professional 

 activity to design and remodel a large number of gardens in France, 

 Vaux, Chantilly, St. Germain, Fontainebleau, St. Cloud and many 

 which no longer remain, and in other parts of Europe as well. He 

 showed unusual ability in fitting his work to the site and in producing 

 recognizably different effects in different designs, but the main con- 

 ception on which his work was based was, throughout, the same as 

 that which was manifested at Versailles, a thorough appreciation 

 of the grandeur which comes through sheer size, and ability to com- 

 bine this effect with much local interest of detail, but also the courage to 

 produce this effect even at the cost of some barrenness of extent of 

 parterre and interminable stretch of vista. 



All over Europe, too, the Grand style found ready imitators ; and in 

 less skillful hands than Le Notre's, formality on too small a scale became 

 stiffness, straight allees on rolling topography were deprived of any mean- 

 ing in design, sun-smitten parterres overpowered the buildings which 

 faced upon them, or served as exhibitions of labored monstrosities of car- 

 pet bedding, or were intersected by enormously wide paths where there 

 were never great enough crowds to give them sufficient reason for being. 



The Grand style was taken over also into the field of city planning, 



