THE ENGLISH LANDSCAPE SCHOOL 



297 



^ 



lead of England and to replace the magnificent tradition of Le Notre witTi 

 the ridiculous fancies of the landscape gardener. 



Although the landscape garden was generally called le jardin anglais 

 in France, and might be supposed to have mainly originated in England, 

 there had already been several attempts to break away from the stiff formality 

 of the seventeenth century. A designer named Dufreny, born in Paris in 1648* 

 has been regarded as one of ^the pioneers of the natural style, and accordin 

 to D'Alen^on, when Louis XIV first resolved upon laying out Versailles on 

 an extensive scale, Dufreny 

 submitted two different 

 schemes which were refused 

 by the King, on account of 

 the expense ; some of these 

 designs were published in 

 1 73 1. Dufreny said that he 

 preferred to lay out his gar- 

 dens upon an irregular site, 

 and when Nature offered no 

 obstacles to overcome he 

 created them himself, that is 

 to say, when he had to deal 

 with a flat site he prompth 

 raised a hill and utilized it for 

 a belvedere. He designed the 

 gardens of Mignaux near 

 Poissy, and also laid out a piece 

 of ground which belonged 

 to him in the Faubourg St. 

 Antoine, in the natural style. 



Paramount above all was the influence of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who 

 as Taine said " made the dawn visible to people who had never risen till 

 noon, the landscape to eyes that had only rested hitherto upon drawing- 

 rooms and palaces, the natural garden to men who had only walked between 

 tonsured yews and rectilinear flower borders." Rousseau in La nouvelle 

 Helbise explains the radical change of taste that was taking place in garden 

 design. Describing an imaginary garden on the banks of the Lake of Geneva 



3lJL. 



i. 



THE TEMPLE OE .T.OLUS, KEW. 



