I 12 



LANDSCAPE DESIGN 



Variability of 

 Light and 

 Shade 



scenes which we behold. The masses of light and dark which are formed 

 by the shadows assume of themselves, through their contrast of value, 

 great importance as visual units in the design. Properly arranged, 

 they may cooperate with the actual forms, enhance them and lead the 

 attention to where it should lie in the composition, as, for instance, where 

 a statue, perhaps somewhat insignificant in size, is made sufficient for 

 its place at the end of a vista by standing in a blaze of sunlight against 

 a background of shadowy green. On the other hand, an ill-considered 

 falling of the shadows may not only confuse the effect of mass relations 

 designed to play definite parts in the composition, overlaying and cut- 

 ting up designed form with shadow form, but also may create false and 

 unlocked for points of interest, directing the attention quite otherwise 

 than as the designer intended. Shadows may be definitely designed 

 to serve as units in a composition. A great shadow may fall upon the 

 foreground lawn, enframing and setting off the more distant sunny 

 landscape. (See Plate 21.) The shadows of a number of trees in vanish- 

 ing perspective may diversify and give scale to an area of grassland r 

 or the netted shadow of the winter branches of a tree may very 

 pleasantly decorate the bare wall of a building. Or it may be that 

 instead of falling in broad areas, breaking the landscape into large 

 and restful masses, the shadows may fall in a scintillation of light and 

 dark, pleasantly flecking the ground under the trees, moving in the 

 wind and giving to the whole scene a certain effect of delicacy and 

 gayety. (See Plate 19.) 



It is often desirable to have in a design some area the very purpose 

 of which shall be that it is a place of shade ; or another place of open 

 greensward and brilliant flowers may be designed to be at its best only 

 in the full blaze of the sun. This subdivision of design into units of 

 sun and units of shadow was well understood by the Italians,* dwelling 

 in a climate where the sun is unusually brilliant and the shade corre- 

 spondingly precious. 



As the sun moves through the sky throughout the day, the shadows 

 change and fall differently, and different objects in the design may 

 emerge from the obscurity of shadow to a temporary importance of 

 sunshine and sink again to shadow. And the shadows themselves, long 



* Cf. Chapter IV, p. 41. 



