LANDSCAPE PARKS 305 



coincide as far as may be with character-units of the topography. 

 His park should be a work of art, and its planning an act of artistic 

 composition. Each separate scene may be composed much as the 

 painter composes the forms upon his canvas, but the total composition 

 of a landscape park is not only a summation of a series of views, not 

 only a proper provision for rest and exercise, it is a harmony in natu- 

 ralistic landscape effects.* 



As we have seen, a landscape park should properly serve many dif- Uses Properly 

 ferent purposes within its province, and for the greatest efficiency of y*^^^^^ ^y ^ 

 the park it should be determined by the designer to what purposes park 

 the park at large may be devoted without any particular adaptation 

 of its character, for what purposes segregated areas should be provided, 

 and for what purposes it will be desirable to provide areas of particular 

 and definite shape, probably not usable for any other ends. In a gen- 

 eral way the recreation which a person may obtain in a park is of two 

 kinds : on the one hand, active exercise ; and on the other, passive 

 recreation, that is, rest together with the contemplation of interesting 

 sights. For the first, such activities as walking, picnicking, folk danc- 

 ing, various running games of children, coasting, tobogganing, snow- 

 shoeing, skiing, skating, swimming, boating, archery, might be carried 

 on in a landscape park without any considerable change of the natural 

 forms to adapt them to these uses. Such activities as golf, tennis 

 on grass courts, lawn bowls, require the modeling or leveling of cer- 

 tain portions of ground, but still need make no very great change 

 in the landscape. The pleasures of listening to music or enjoying out- 

 of-door dramatics or spectacles may be provided for by architectural 

 music-courts or outdoor theaters, or they may be carried on in music 

 groves or natural amphitheaters without much change in the landscape 

 character of the park. 



A promenade for crowds, however, or any area properly designed 

 for the use of people who wish to walk back and forth in the company 

 of many others of their kind and to be entertained by the sight of in- 

 teresting things along the way, will introduce into a park an element , 

 which cannot be completely made a part of any natural landscape char- 

 acter. Similarly zoological gardens and displays of cultivated flowers, 



* Cf. Chapter VI, p. 83. 

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