CHAPTER L 



THE ART AND THE ARTIST. 



**If now we ask when and where we need the Fine Art of 

 Gardening, ninst not the answer be, wlienever and wlierever 

 we touclithe surface of the ground and the plants it bears 

 with the wisli to produce an organized result that shall 

 please tlie eye? The name we usually apply to it must not 

 mislead us into thiuKing that this art is needed only for the 

 creation of broad ' landscape ' effects. It is needed wherever 

 we do more than grow plants for the money we may save or 

 gain by them. It does not matter whether we have in mind 

 a great park or a small city square, a large estate or a modest 

 dooryard, we must go about our work in an artistic spirit if 

 we want a good result. Two trees and six shrubs, a scrap of 

 lawn and a dozen flowering plants, may form either a beau- 

 tiful little picture or a huddled disarray of forms and 

 colors." Mrs. Van Rensselaer. 



Landscape gardening is eminently a fine art. The 

 enumeration of painting, sculpture and architecture as 

 the fine arts is seriously deficient, and yet it has a wide 

 currency. That is a fine art which attempts to create 

 organized beauty — to unite several dissimilar parts in 

 one harmonic whole. In this respect landscaj)e art 

 stands on a level with the other fine arts. In some 

 other respects it even surpasses them. 



Landscape gardening is much the best known term 

 in America for the subject which we have now in hand. 

 Landscape art is an equally correct term, but it does 

 not seem to bring so clear a suggestion to most minds. 

 Landscape architecture is much spoken of in France, 

 but it is unsatisfactory in English usage. In former 

 times the simple word '^gardening" was in general use 

 in England to designate this art, especially that style of 

 gardening practice known as the natural, or English, 

 method. This would still be the most convenient word 



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