The ideals 

 of the 

 Landscape 

 Architect. 



THE PRACTICE OF GARDEN DESIGN. 



What is meant by this, may, I think, be very shortly illustrated by a concrete 

 instance. Here is a statue of Pan surrounded by his dancing dryads. Looking at it, 

 the intensely practical man, so dear to the heart of the average Briton, says that, if it 

 possesses the quality of uniqueness, it is the most important adornment in the garden. 

 He esteems the work solely according to its rarity, and consequently its commercial 

 value. The romancist, on the other hand, is seen in the sculptor or modeller, who 

 judges it according to its artistry, silhouette, mass or detail, and its relation to its setting. 

 He confines himself, more or less, to its visual merit, and, to him, this is its appeal. 

 The triumph of the symbolist or mystic is, however, complete. Looking at the statue, 

 he sees things to others invisible, hears, in the far-off pine-wood, the music of Pan's 

 pipes at mid-day. All else is secondary, and he yearns, through the medium of his art, 

 to translate his vision to the understanding of others. 



This is his province, to infuse the drab necessities of existence with an inherent 

 beauty, to divert the common crowd from low ideals by the elevation of their environ- 

 ment, and to cause those who never really loved art and who resent it as a departure 

 from their own level of mediocrity, to rise to more worthy aims. Filled with a right 

 conception of the dignity of his art, and fired with a great desire for its advancement, 

 he expresses out of his own soul his passion, and persuades his audience to see what he 

 chooses by materializing his dream, using, as a medium to this end, architecture, verdure, 

 flowers, and the other materials of his craft, weaving the whole into one rhythmic, 

 harmonious composition. 



The Landscape Architect who can do this, who has the soul of the artist combined 

 with practical acumen and technical ability, cannot fail to achieve the highest that is 

 humanly possible to leave the World a little richer than he found it. Such men must, 

 of course, be rare, for it is a combination the prerogative of the highest genius. Never- 

 theless it is the ideal to be aimed at by every man in the profession and, even though he 

 only partially realizes his aim, in so far as he is successful, his work will attain to 

 immortality and the fining hand of time, which destroys ruthlessly the meretricious and 

 hardly conserves that which is best fit to endure, will shew that his work is worthy. 



We thus see what an opportunity, and, at the same time, what a responsibility, lie 

 before the Landscape Architect of to-day if he is to maintain worthily the great traditions 

 of garden design handed down to him by the garden makers of the past, and adequately 

 to grasp the opportunities which the rise of a more discerning public has provided him 

 with. It is with this opportunity and this responsibility in mind that we approach, in 

 the next and subsequent chapters, the practical details of garden design, and it will be 

 our endeavour to show how they may be rescued from the pettiness and meannesses 

 which have done so much to degrade the art of recent years, and how landscape archi- 

 tecture may be raised to its proper place as mistress of the liberal professions as practised 

 in this country. 



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