LANDSCAPE COMPOSITION 12^ 



important object worthy of closer inspection. The formal allee gives 

 all these effects more definitely, more obviously (see again Drawing I, 

 opp. p. 26), but a vista between natural tree masses or ground forms 

 may produce the same essential effect. (See Plate 21.) 



The focal point, which is treated as being so essentially dominant, 

 must be worthy of this dominance. (See Drawing IX, opp. p. 78, and 

 Drawing XV, opp. p. 122.) Exceptionally, this "point" may be merely 

 an opening, the bright spot where a shaded allee stops on the brink of 

 a declivity commanding a view, or where a wood-road comes out into 

 a sunlit pasture. Such an arrangement, however, is seldom thoroughly 

 satisfactory. Merely a vacuity is not likely to seem a sufficient ter- 

 mination. Where such a composition occurs, it is often desirable to 

 introduce some object — for instance, a shelter — which serves as a 

 sufficient terminus for the vista and from which the open view may 

 be enjoyed. If an object closes a vista, usually, as we have said, it is 

 desirable that this object shall be worthy of inspection at close range, 

 as well as being in its main mass sufficient for its effect in the vista. 

 A statue, a niche, a fountain, a shelter, is likely to be a successful feature 

 in such a composition, — a shelter perhaps particularly so, because it 

 suggests the desirability of going to it. A great tree in a distant 

 landscape may serve, as a mountain does,* as a sufficient focal 

 point, although one has no great desire to go to it ; but in a smaller 

 composition a tree is likely to be a poor focal point, because, however 

 well its mass may serve at a distance, it can hardly offer interest 

 enough in the details of its trunk near at hand to repay a close ap- 

 proach. A better arrangement will usually be to use as a focal point 

 a shelter, or arch, or seat, according to the scale and conditions of 

 the case, grouped with the tree and overarched, shaded, and dignified 

 by it. 



Where the focal point is distant and perhaps seen across a consider- 

 able intervening open space from the end of the vista, as for instance 

 where a distant hill is thus looked at, it may be given greater apparent 

 importance by a contraction of the vista which cuts out nearly all other 

 objects except the hill, converges the attention more directly on the 

 hill, and thereby gives it greater relative dominance, f 



* Cf. footnote, p. 103. fSee Drawing XVI, on next page. 



