The Partnership between Nature and Art 9 



sense of form. He appreciates, as well as a Greek classicist, the 

 value and the beauty of a line. His eye follows joyfully the con 

 tour of a range of hills, the flowing curves of a little river meander 

 ing through a meadow, bold masses of woodland and wild shrub 

 bery, the sky-line broken by tree tops, a winding road climbing 

 the hill-side, the bare beauty of an elm in winter, the jagged out 

 line of a rock, the slender swaying stem of a reed. These he 

 studies and adapts for a naturalistic garden. 



But the study of art has also taught him the beauty of the 

 circle and the ellipse in a classic garden, of straight avenues of 

 trees and of clipped hedges, of vistas through long, parallel rows 

 of vine-encircled columns, of the fountain, the mirror-like pool, 

 the direct paths that do but emphasise the formality of the design, 

 the broad velvety terraces, the box-edged parterres of gay flowers, 

 the stately, columnar trees; and he knows that, if by employing 

 these he can produce a picture in harmony with the architecture it 

 surrounds and still gratify the aesthetic sense, he has fulfilled what 

 Taine, in his &quot;Philosophy of Art,&quot; declared to be art s mission. 



In Japan there is a saying: &quot;Let no one use the word beauti 

 ful until he has seen Nikko.&quot; No Occidental should ever use 

 the word, in connection with a garden at least, until he has seen 

 the old classic gardens of Italy. Here, in this new country, where 

 art out-of-doors is only beginning to be understood and appreciated, 

 where there are so lamentably few standards of artistic excellence 

 and where so many crimes are committed in the name of Italian 

 gardens, it is small wonder that a popular prejudice against 

 them exists. Without a proper sense of form on the maker s part, 

 even a naturalistic garden becomes a chaos and a void. 



There is a well-known American artist who has every quality 

 essential for greatness except the colour sense. Indeed he is colour- 



