82 LANDSCAPE DESIGN 



better words, peaceful, restful, suave. It is free from sudden motion 

 or change, it is sequential in line, and of soft color. Its gently depress- 

 ing quality is due either to some gloominess in local color, or in at- 

 mospheric conditions, such as approaching darkness or a drizzling 

 rain, or to some melancholy thoughts aroused through association 

 (see Plate 2), — aroused, for instance, by a ruined building, a church- 

 yard, an old and decaying tree, or by anything which suggests the end 

 or destruction of something once beautiful or prospering, 



Gayety The gayety of a scene seems to depend objectively on a multitude of 



small motions, and on bright light with enough small and broken con- 

 trasting shadow to make the landscape scintillating and sparkling. 

 The play of a water surface, the movement of branches and their shad- 

 ows in the sun and breeze, the twittering of birds, would to most of 

 us make a landscape seem gay. Gayety being a somewhat superficial 

 and transitory emotion, it would usually be overshadowed in the 

 human mind by feelings of awe or grandeur or sublimity if a landscape 

 aroused these feelings as well, and therefore if a landscape is called gay, 

 it is likely to be a small and not very impressive scene. 



Mystery The effect of mystery is the result of impossibility of complete per- 



ception. It may be caused by simple inability to see the landscape 

 with any distinctness, as for instance when the scene is shrouded in 

 haze or in a snow storm or in darkness, or it may be that the foreground 

 is clearly seen, but that an important part of the landscape known to 

 be present is nevertheless concealed, as where a river or a road winds 

 out of sight behind some intervening barrier. Or it may be that sheer 

 multiplicity of detail prevents our clear comprehension of the landscape, 

 as when we look at the misty leaves and branches of a thick deciduous 

 wood in early spring. The result of this mystery upon the mind of 

 the observer may be little more than mere confusion, but more often 

 it is a pleasant challenge to the imagination which sets the observer to 

 trying to determine for himself by closer investigation what is concealed 

 from his first glance, or if this be impossible, to filling in and complet- 

 ing the unseen landscape according to the play of his own fancy.* (See 

 Plate 20.) 



* "In parts it has been allowed to grow up to a rather monotonous and weedy- 

 looking dense undergrowth which presents an uninviting barrier nearly uniform in 



