iQ2 LANDSCAPE DESIGN 



therefore matters of scale and of distance in landscape composition 

 are inextricably bound up together.* A series of objects of known size 

 in a landscape serves, as does the stadia rod of the engineer, to deter- 

 mine the distance from the observer to various parts of the landscape ; 

 and conversely, an object at a known distance will be known to be 

 large or small according to the size of the image in the eye of the ob- 

 server. (See Drawing XI, opp. p. 82, and Plate 21.) In architectural 

 design, this matter of scale is more completely under the control of the 

 designer. He may repeat throughout his building or throughout his 

 group of buildings objects of recognizably the same size, and almost 

 inevitably this size will be definitely related to the size of a man. In 

 landscape design, however, in those cases where architectural features 

 are not much used, the elements of the design will not have so definite 

 and determinable a size. Nevertheless within certain limits the land- 

 scape designer has at his disposal many objects whose size may be 

 judged from their appearance. Some shrubs and many trees have a 

 reasonably predictable size at maturity. Any one noticing in a New 

 England landscape a mature sugar maple tree or an orchard of gnarled 

 apple trees would be able to tell with some accuracy their size and 

 consequently the size of the landscape about them, because he would 

 know from experience that these trees attain a certain size only when 

 they have attained such an appearance. 



Effects of This relation of our visual perceptions of size and of distance puts 



Perspective j nto t jje hands of the landscape designer a considerable power of modify- 

 ing the apparent extent of the landscape in his design, or less frequently 

 the apparent size of the elements in it.f By slightly diminishing the 

 actual size of distant objects, they may thereby be made to seem more 

 distant. By so subdividing the foreground, for instance, as to make 

 an object seem farther away than it really is, its apparent size may be 

 increased. What we call the laws of perspective are merely the rela- 

 tions which we have found to exist between the actual size, shape, and 

 location of objects in the world and their visual appearance to an ob- 

 server. That it is the appearance of things in perspective and not their 



* Cf. Hugo Koch's Der Optische Maszstab in der Gartenkunst, in Gartenkunst, Feb. 

 and Apr. 1915. (See REFERENCES.) 

 t Cf. Illusions, p. 1 20. 



