LANDSCAPE COMPOSITION i^ 



design, like a view in a forecourt, in a garden, within a lawn ; other 

 views may lie across several units of this kind, and perhaps include 

 foliage masses outside the property and terminate on a distant moun- 

 tain. The pictorial unity of these two kinds of views is essentially 

 the same. The first kind, however, may be represented, or at least 

 suggested for study, on the plan of the grounds ; the second kind can 

 be studied, as it can be seen, only on the ground itself. 



There is obviously no limit to the variety of different landscape Typical Kinds 



compositions. The essential of a landscape composition, as we have °i^ ^'^^^^^y^'- 



. . . . Lompositions 



seen,* is some unified appeal to the attention throughout the objects 



forming the composition, which makes them seem to the observer to 



form one whole and thereby — to some extent at least — segregates 



that whole from the rest of the world. The arrangements of objects in 



a view which may produce this unified effect may be thought of as being 



of three typically different kinds. 



The compositional effect may be produced by a single thing looked 

 at, like a specimen tree or an isolated fountain (see Tailpiece on p. 294), 

 or by a unified group of things looked at, for instance, a unified group 

 of contiguous trees on a lawn. 



The compositional effect may be produced by a number of things 

 physically separated, but evincing such great unity In appearance or 

 related position that attention falls rather upon this unifying relation 

 than upon the objects themselves, for instance a formal arrangement 

 of four cypress trees about a pool, or a grouping of red cedars and gray 

 bowlders In a New England pasture, or a unified group of mountain 

 peaks. (See Frontispiece.) 



The compositional effect may be produced by a hollow thing looked 

 into, such a thing as a walled garden, a shrub-bordered lawn, or a cliff- 

 encircled mountain tarn. (See Plates 6, 8, and 30, and Drawing I, 

 opp. p. 26.) 



In the first case, the single object may attract the attention simply 

 because it is so interesting in Itself, and although other objects are 

 physically present in the view, their effect is negligible In the com- 

 position. Indeed with the single object in the first case or with the 

 unified composition of objects discussed in the second case, there may 



* Page 89. 



