THE PRECEDENT OF GARDEN DESIGN. 



Speaking of this period, Loudon says : " The Professor required no further exami- 

 nation of the ground than what was necessary to take the levels for forming a piece 

 of water, which water uniformly assumed one shape or character, and differed no more 

 in different situations than did the belt or the clump. So entirely mechanical had the 

 art become, that one might have guessed what would have been the plan given by the 

 professor before he was called in ; and Price actually gives an instance in which this 

 was done. The activity of this false taste was abated in England before our time " 

 (Loudon wrote at the beginning of the nineteenth century), " but we have seen in 

 Scotland, between the years 1795 and 1805, we believe, above a hundred of such plans, 

 in part formed by local artists, but chiefly by an English professor, who was in the 

 habit of making annual journeys to the North, taking orders for plans, which he got 

 drawn on his return home, not one of which differed from the rest in anything but 

 magnitude. These plans were, in general, mounted on linen, which he regularly pur- 

 chased, in pieces of some hundreds of yards at a time, from a celebrated bleachfield 

 adjoining Perth." 



This state of affairs led to the letting loose of a flood of argument as to what 

 were the principles on which gardens should be designed and whence they should 

 obtain their artistic precedent. Repton, Knight and Price were conspicuous in the fray 

 both from the volume of their writings and the weight of their arguments, and the 

 subject even became the motive of a novel and the subject of poetry. 



The upshot was that the whole art fell more or less into disuse for a time and 5^ Joseph 

 only entirely revived with the advent of Sir Joseph Paxton, whose excellence as a natural Paxton and 

 genius in the science of constructional engineering, coupled with his experience as a his contem- 

 practical gardener, were considered sufficient qualifications for work which, above all poraries. 

 things, demands a most catholic art training. 



Nevertheless his work, together with that of his contemporaries, Edward Milner, 

 Robert Marnock, Edward Thomas and Edward Kemp, was not without very considerable 

 merit and a great advance on that which preceded it. It stands out in bold re- 

 lief against that of the host of nurserymen and garden contractors who, encouraged by 

 negligent architects and indifferent clients, added to their legitimate occupation what 

 they were pleased to call " Landscape Gardening," which, whatever the term might 

 convey to the customer, did not suggest to the professor of the trade any study or 

 knowledge of the arts. 



It is not surprising therefore that, towards the end of the last century, the whole 

 art was viewed, by persons of education and taste, more in a spirit of toleration than 

 with any enthusiasm for its development and that, between the architect for the house 

 and the planner of its surroundings, there should grow up a mutual contempt and mis- 

 understanding. 



Kemp, by his writings and work, alone did much to heal this breach. He published, 

 under the title of " How to lay out a Garden," a most excellent book which ran through 

 three editions. The following quotation from the preface to the third edition of this 

 work shews how nearly Kemp approached, at least in appreciation, to the architect's 

 outlook on garden design : 



"It is much to be regretted that architects and landscape gardeners do not more 

 usually work together in complete unison from the very commencement of any under- 

 taking in which they are jointly consulted ; and he who would produce a work in which 

 the relation of the two arts to each other, and the elements of garden architecture and 

 of architectural gardening, should be skilfully handled and tastefully illustrated, would 

 deserve the thanks of the entire art-loving community." 



The undoubted revival which has followed the mistakes of the Early Victorian era 

 in all forms of art is having its influence on Landscape Architecture. The dictum 



Kemp. 



ii 



