The Natural Style in Landscape Gardening 



bar may have two, three, four or six beats. This 

 gives us our musical rhythm; but rhythm has its 

 uses in other branches of art besides music. I have 

 often found it most convenient to speak of the 

 rhythm of a garden composition. A row of trees 

 has just the same succession of accents which we 

 find in the measures of martial music. Rhythm is 

 merely a certain kind of paragraphic structure. It 

 is easy to see the same rhythmic or paragraphic dis- 

 position of parts, in ornamentation or total compo- 

 sition, in architecture ; it can be found also in paint- 

 ing, especially in decorative painting, while any 

 ensemble of sculpture necessarily follows the same 

 plan of grouping. 



The comparison of landscape gardening with mu- 

 sic is always suggestive, and this comparison de- 

 serves to be followed out a little further just at this 

 point. The composer of music, as will be easily dis- 

 covered, builds up his compositions upon his se- 

 lected motives in divers ways. The simplest song 

 theme stands alone. The airs of ballads and folk 

 songs, and even of dance tunes are always first used 

 in this manner. 



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