io 4 LANDSCAPE DESIGN 



the texture of an object and its size and shape. A distant screen 

 plantation may be made of separate large trees, but still remain one 

 mass. A border for a flower bed in a well-kept formal garden must be 

 composed of small and close-growing plants, and often these plants 

 must be clipped that the border may seem of continuous texture and 

 not a series of individual plants.* In the materials used by the land- 

 scape architect there is the greatest possible variation in texture : from 

 the smoothness of calm water or polished marble to the harshness of a 

 "Spanish bayonet" or a shattered ledge ; from the cloudy fineness of a 

 smoke-tree in bloom to the coarseness of "elephant's ear" and other 

 tropical plants. Quite apart from the effect of larger form, therefore, 

 the interest of the beholder may be held or directed, the importance of 

 an object in the design may be increased or diminished, purely through 

 the effect of texture in the composition. A flower bed of various colors 

 may be unified by the repetition of a similar texture throughout ; the 

 unity of a lawn or of a wheatfield is due to the effect of its consistency 

 of texture of clipped turf or standing grain. The effect of distance in 

 perspective may be increased by a sequence of textures growing finer 

 as they recede from the observer. A clipped tree of solid texture or a 

 plant with dark and shiny leaves may be balanced by another which 

 through the same texture has the same ability to attract attention in 

 the design, but in this case the balance if satisfactory is due primarily 

 to the shape, or perhaps the color, and not wholly to the texture. A 

 balance between two objects otherwise similar may be upset by striking 

 variation in texture, but balance in texture alone is generally less 

 effective than balance in shape or color. 



It is not in the province of this book to discuss in detail either the 

 physics of light or the esthetic theory of color. But some of the work 

 of the landscape architect on paper depends on color as the painter's 

 does, and all of his work out of doors deals with colored objects, and is 

 constantly, and often greatly, modified in its apparent color and con- 

 sequent effect by changes of light and atmosphere. Usually he cannot 

 modify his actual work, studying it and changing it on the ground until 

 he is satisfied with the effect ; therefore, he must to some extent predict 

 the effect, knowing the conditions. A little review of some of the facts 



* Cf. Chapter IX, p. 157-158. 



