132 



LANDSCAPE DESIGN 



Hill and 

 Mountain 

 Forms in 

 Landscape 

 Composition 



the attention perforce rests. The lower portions of the slopes of such 

 mountains need not be steep, and may indeed run smoothly into the 

 surrounding ground forms ; in fact the peak or crest of the mountain 

 need form only a very small portion of its total bulk, but it attracts the 

 attention and gives character and individuality to the whole eminence 

 by concentrating in one dominating spire the upward sweep of the whole 

 mountain mass. Such mountains, or at least their summits, must be 

 made of hard material, and usually are the result of upheaval and of 

 the disintegrating effects of frost and the erosion of water, their end- 

 lessly different shapes being the results of the cleavage or stability of 

 the different rocks under the action of the destructive forces. This 

 is, in most men's minds, the typical mountain form. Whether the 

 beholder regards it as inspiring and sublime, or repellent and wild, will 

 depend in part on the form of the mountain, no doubt upon its crags 

 and its cap of snow, but more the effect will depend on the observer 

 himself. A mountain range which seems inhospitable to the farmer, 

 and savage to the city dweller, may be a glorious challenge to the 

 mountaineer. (See Frontispiece.) 



There are hills which rise abruptly from the surrounding landscape 

 and bear on their tops a more or less level area, segregated by the 

 steepness of the slopes from the lands below it. Such a butte or mesa 

 attracts the attention as a separated mass in the general composition ; 

 there is no sequence of line either over or into the outline of the hill 

 from the surrounding landscape. The upper plateau is segregated 

 both actually and esthetically by the barrier sides. As an object in 

 composition, such a hill is likely to be very individual, and to relate to 

 other objects only by its total mass or color. Such hills may be the 

 result of the water erosion of a previous plain made of a material which 

 has a very high angle of repose, usually of a horizontally stratified 

 material with a hard crowning layer, or they may be, exceptionally, 

 the results of uplifting or subsidence along a fault plane. 



A single mountain may be looked at for its own beauty, just as a 

 statue may be, but a distant view of a mountain inevitably includes 

 other elements besides the mountain itself, and if the mountain is to 

 be most effective in the larger view in which it forms only a part, it 

 must be compositionally related to the other objects in the view: it 



