BEAUTIES OF THE ART. 35 



only, which are never to be mistaken for the originals, as in 

 the case of the wax figure.* 



One of the chief elements of artistical imitation in Land- 

 scape Gardening, being a difference in the materials employed 

 in the imitation of nature from those in nature herself, nothing 

 can be more apparent, than the necessity of introducing large- 

 ly, exotic ornamental trees, shrubs and plants, instead of those 

 of indigenous growth. Thus, to take the simplest example, 

 if we suppose a lawn of an acre, arranged with groups of 

 trees, the • groups composed of lindens, horse-chestnuts and 

 magnolias, where the native forests are only filled with oak 

 and ash trees, the variety of the foliage and blossoms alone, will 

 at once suggest the recognition of art. Borders of rare flow- 

 ers, and climbing plants, — gravel walks, in the place of com- 

 mon paths or roads, — smooth turf, instead of wild meadow, 

 — elegant vases and architectural ornaments, with many 

 other accessories, bespeaking the presence of tasteful and en- 

 lightened mind : all these are the essential characteristics of 

 Landscape Gardening, considered as an art of imitation. 



Besides picturesque and beautiful imitations of nature, 

 another mode has recently arisen in England, which Mr. 

 Loudon has very appropriately named the Gardenesque 

 style. The style is evidently founded rather upon a culti- 



* " Thus, there is a beauty of nature and a beauty of art. To copy the 

 beauty of nature cannot be called being an artist in the highest sense of the word, 

 as a mechanical talent only is requisite for this. The beautiful in art depends 

 on ideas, and the true artist, therefore, must possess, together with the talent 

 for technical execution, that genial power which revels freely in rich forms, and 

 is capable of producing and animating them. It is by this that the merit of the 

 artist and his production is to be judged ; and these cannot be properly esti- 

 mated among those barren copyists which we find so many of our flower, land- 

 scape, and portrait painters to be. But the artist stands much higher in the 

 scale, who, though a copyistof visible nature, is capable of seizing it with poetic 

 fooling, and representing it in its more dignified sense : such for example as 

 Rapliael, Poussin, Claude, &ic." — Weinuueuner. 



