STRUCTURES IN LANDSCAPE 195 



avoidable result of the choice of style or of the recognition of use by 

 form. In masonry the available stone and the way in which it can best 

 be laid may determine the texture produced. As objects in landscape 

 design, architectural structures are considerably dependent upon their 

 texture for their compositional effect in conjunction with other objects. 

 Smoothness of texture, and consequent possibility of definite pattern 

 in small detail, enables an object most completely to express a man- 

 imposed style, and so to differentiate itself from the landscape ; whereas 

 a rough texture, that is, a certain fortuitous arrangement of the smaller 

 parts of the surface, makes a structure more nearly similar to the trees 

 and rocks of a natural landscape. Particularly in the smaller structures, 

 the designer should be on his guard as to this definiteness and perhaps 

 stiffness of form produced by fine texture. A fountain, a sundial, the 

 curb of a fountain basin, any such object which must have definite 

 form in small size, may well be made of some smooth-textured material ; 

 on the other hand, many mistakes are made in the choice of a texture 

 too fine, and so of too rigid a surface and too definite an outline, for 

 things like steps and walks and walls which are not designed to be them- 

 selves the dominant objects in the scene, but which are to form part 

 of an outdoor composition with trees and flowers. Such structures 

 should have some pleasing irregularity of form and color in their sur- 

 face and some possibility of accumulating moss and lichens, and grow- 

 ing old gracefully with the rest of the design. 



The choice of local material in stonework may give harmony of Color of 



color, as well as harmony of texture, between the stonework and any Buildings in 



111 i i i .. T-.I Relation to 



natural ledge which may appear in the composition. For the most Landscape 



part, however, the color of our structures is determined by our choice 

 of brick, by our choice of a stain for cement and stucco, and by our 

 choice of color in paint. Fortunately for the American landscape, the 

 colors which are usual in brick and stucco and cement are on the whole 

 the more subdued colors. No such restriction, however, is set upon 

 house-painters, and, although the worst period of incongruity of violent 

 color between each house and its neighbor and every house and the 

 landscape is now passing, there are still sins enough of this kind 

 committed to make it desirable that every landscape designer should 

 bear his witness against them. In the color which can be so readily 



