TASTE, IDEALS, STYLE, CHARACTER 31 



so perfectly interpreted nature's character that the work should seem 

 to be a wonderfully complete and intelligible expression of nature's self. 



In these designs of man which imitate — or better, interpret — 

 nature, there will be two kinds of unity sought by the designer. He 

 will seek, as he does In his man-made designs, esthetic compositional 

 harmony of form and color and arrangement, but he will seek also to 

 express his ideal of a much more subtle harmony, namely, the landscape 

 character which in large measure is not observed directly in the forms 

 or in the composition, but is seen only in the light of some knowledge 

 of the great natural forces at work, the growth of trees, the wave- 

 carving of the beaches, the upheaval of the hills. 



In natural landscape, this character is the result of infinitely greater Interpretation 



and more complicated reactions of forces than those which shape the ^J^Io,^o,scape 



r rr^i f 1 J 1 1 Character 



works of man. These forces operate on so vast a scale and through 



such great stretches of time that the particular manifestations which 

 we now observe are never the perfect expression of a combination of 

 forces working all towards one obvious end. The river valley has been 

 first upheaved and then eroded ; the mountain slope has been forest- 

 clad, stripped by an avalanche, again forest-clad, and again perhaps 

 denuded by fire. In his own small work man may express his ideal of 

 what might be the result if nature deigned to coordinate her forces for 

 so small an end as man's esthetic pleasure. But when man deals with 

 larger works of nature, all he can do, all he should dare attempt, is 

 humbly to study the character and effect of the landscape as he finds 

 it and to remove such things as he may which are incongruous with 

 this expression and add such things as he can which will carry it to a 

 greater completeness. 



