'THE GARDEN 243 



objects are seen against it ; and it is itself a surface to be decorated in 

 patterns of turf and path and pool and flower bed, and a setting for 

 the various free-standing objects which, while not interrupting the 

 open unity of the whole garden, are in themselves objects of interest 

 and further accent the pattern of the garden floor. (See Plate 30, 

 Drawing XX, opp. p. 158, and Tailpiece on p. 23.) 



This pattern will be built up primarily in relation to the main axes 

 of the garden and the views along them, in relation to the paths and 

 where they must lie in order to serve reasonably well the lines of traffic 

 in the garden, in relation to the practically necessary sizes of shelters 

 and walls and steps and flower beds, and under these restrictions in 

 relation to the considerations of pure design which would make a 

 decorative flat composition out of the elements at hand. 



In its recognition of the most important views within it, the garden Typical 



is likely to be arranged in one of two ways : there may be an object of Compositional 



. . ill Arrangements 



interest at each end, and the important view may traverse the whole O f t he Garden 



length of the garden, terminating on one or the other of these objects floor 

 (see Plate 30) ; or some object of interest may occupy the center of 

 the garden, important enough to dominate the scheme, but not large 

 enough to destroy the total unity within the inclosure. (See Plate 29.) 

 In the first case the center of the garden will be entirely open, or at most 

 decorated with objects small enough and low enough not to destroy its 

 effect of openness ; in the second case, the sense of one dominant object 

 enframed by the rest of the scheme would probably lead to an open 

 space in the middle of the garden in which this dominant object is set. 

 The first arrangement develops a strong feeling of axial relation ; 

 the second produces rather the feeling of all the outer parts of the gar- 

 den being related inward towards a center. 



The floor of this central portion will be decorated with treatments 

 of a flat surface as we have seen, pools, lawn, paths, low flower plant- 

 ing, or carpet bedding. As far as the accommodation of traffic is con- 

 cerned there will probably be a tendency to run a path from end to end 

 of the garden on the axis. Except in the case of a long and narrow 

 scheme, rather a flower-bordered allee than a garden, such an arrange- 

 ment is likely to be bad. A very broad path surface, even if it be as 

 interesting a surface as a stone-paved walk, is uninteresting by com- 



