212 



LANDSCAPE DESIGN 



Setting of 

 Statuary in 

 Landscape 

 Composition 



roundings, the designer must take into account a more general appro- 

 priateness of effect. Statues representing the Seasons, or Youth, or 

 Love, or Joy, or Peace, might well find a congenial home in a garden. 

 A statue of a falconer might be appropriately placed on the edge of a 

 wood overlooking a park meadow ; a statue of a tigress might be used 

 in the wild scenery of a park which suggests the wilder scenery of the 

 jungle. 



Where a statue represents something which might actually appear 

 In its living shape in the same setting, it is extremely important that 

 the statue should be treated as a representation, not as an imitation 

 of the thing which it portrays. It should be plainly a statue, separate 

 from its setting by being upon a pedestal, and probably so much the 

 further removed from the realm of actuality by being of heroic size. 

 Statuary may be perfectly in place in informal settings, but only cer- 

 tain statuary is so.* First, as we have before said, the effect and sug- 

 gestion of the statue must be congruous with its location. Then its 

 form, including the form of its pedestal, must not be too rigid and 

 architectural ; indeed as in the statues of Daudet and Thomas in the 

 Pare Monceau, the pedestal may be an irregular mass of rock, perhaps 

 covered or garlanded with vines and closely wrought into the surround- 

 ing ground and planting. Then, as the contrasts of color in the natural 

 landscape are likely to be less violent than they are in man's landscape 

 designs, the marble statue w^hich might be none too distinctive a note 

 on a formal parterre would be too staring white in a park. A statue 

 of bronze, of lead, of gray or weathered stone, would probably be more 

 harmonious in the naturalistic surroundings. 



Some statues are sufficiently beautiful in all aspects to stand free 

 and be looked at from all sides. Where such a statue is seen relieved 

 against the sky, its relative size and bulk in the composition must be 

 looked to, that it may not appear attenuated and insignificant. Many 

 statues, however, are frankly designed to face one way only, and should 

 therefore be provided with proper enframement and proper background. 

 A niche in a trimmed hedge, a retaining wall and two sentinel cedars, 

 and many other formal arrangements may serve for the statue closely 



* See the illustrated article by H. A. Caparn, Statuary in Informal Settings, in 

 Landscape Architecture, Oct. 1910. (See References.) 



