July 4, 1894.] 



Garden and Forest. 



261 



GARDEN AND FOREST. 



PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY 



THE GARDEN AND FOREST PUBLISHING CO. 



Office : Tribune Building. New York. 



Conducted by Professor C. S. Sargent. 



ENTERED AS SECOND-CLASS MATTER AT THE POST OFFICE AT NEW YORK, N. V. 



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, JULY 4, 1894. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



Editorial Article:— Art and Nature 



Flowering and Fertilization of the Native Plum Professor E. S. Go/f. 



Flora of Central Thibet Kew Bulletin. 



Foreign Correspondence : — Londun Letter IV. Watson. 



Plant Notes:— -Passiflora manicata. (With figures.) 



Cultural Department: — Notes on Trees and Shrubs J. G. Jack. 



Injury from Overpruning T. H. Hoskins, M.D. 



Sub-irrigation in Greenhouses Fred IV Card. 



Correspondence :— Hardy Rhododendrons. J. C 



An Aquatic Garden J. A'. Gerard 



Orchids in New York Joseph A. Manila. 



Notes • 



Illustrations : — Passiflora manicata, Fig- 44 



Passiflora manicata, in Santa Barbara, California, Fig. 45 



261 

 262 



263 



263 

 264 

 266 

 267 

 268 

 268 



2IV| 

 269 



27" 



265 

 267 



Art and Nature. 



WE spoke last week of the way in which Nature's sug- 

 gestions are often disregarded in the treatment of 

 our private pleasure-grounds, when a respect for these 

 suggestions would furnish an endless diversity of beauti- 

 ful effects instead of the monotonous repetition of lawns, 

 flower-beds and popular plants, all arranged after one 

 fashion and without any relation to the original features of 

 any given site. One reason for this unfortunate state of 

 things may be found in the fact that most people seem to 

 feel that there is an eternal opposition between the terms 

 Nature and Art, and between the qualities they typify as 

 appealing to our admiration and love. Of course, these 

 terms are, in a sense, properly used in contrast. The high- 

 est work of art lacks certain qualities which delight the 

 eye and kindle the imagination in a work of Nature; and, 

 on the other hand, the most impressive natural object lacks 

 that expression of human emotion and intelligence, that 

 evidence of difficulties overcome and ideals conceived and 

 achieved, which contribute so powerfully to the interest 

 and charm of a successful work of art. The artist cannot 

 really imitate Nature any more than Nature can copy Art ; 

 and until this fact is recognized we cannot appreciate the 

 peculiar charm of either natural or artistic beauty. But 

 Nature and Art are constantly conceived of as hostile to 

 each other in a more radical way than this. Many people 

 say, "We are lovers of Nature, and, therefore, we find 

 those things most beautiful which the hand of man has not 

 touched, or in which the traces of his hand are least ob- 

 trusive." These people think that a painter should copy 

 as closely as possible some bit of nature, changing nothing, 

 omitting nothing, emphasizing nothing, but trying to be 

 as accurately photographic as possible, and they resent as 

 an impertinence to themselves and an insult to Nature any 

 suggestion of the artist that he saw more in the scene 

 before him than they might, or saw it differently, or that 

 he wished to press upon their attention some features more 

 strongly than others. They wish him to be a literal trans- 

 lator, while the true artist is an interpreter who transmutes 

 and perhaps glorifies a scene by infusing into it some of 

 t he poetry which inspires him. These same lovers of 



nature insist on a slavishly accurate reproduction of 

 nature by the landscape-gardener and deny his right to use 

 the transforming power of his imagination in constructing 

 his scenery. 



On the other hand, many people say, "We are lovers of 

 Art, and, therefore, the less an artist shows dependence 

 upon Nature, the better he pleases us"; or, if they do not 

 deliberately say this, they unconsciously act upon it. They 

 are willing that a painter shall dispense with good draw- 

 ing, natural schemes of color, and logical schemes of light 

 and shade, if by some striking result he can convince them 

 that he has "originality"; and they call his products 

 "artistic" just in proportion as they diverge most palpably 

 from the models offered by the natural world. Canons of 

 taste like this in the domain of gardening have controlled 

 the design of our country places more frequently than 

 those of the opposite extreme, for we have reached a stage 

 of mental development when we all wish to be considered 

 artistic ; and too many of us like the bold display of ex- 

 penditure for its own sake, and "artistic" pleasure-grounds 

 give a better chance for this display than pleasure-grounds 

 adapted more closely to the suggestion of Nature. 



This belief, that to be artistic we must show little regard 

 for Nature, is seen in our excessive love for trees, shrubs 

 and flowers which are novel or particularly showy or ec- 

 centric in shape or color, and also in the invention of novel 

 forms and color combinations for the almost invariably 

 ugly clipped flower-bed. This radical mistake of thinking 

 that what is artistic must be unnatural, or, at least, non- 

 natural, has not yet led the American people to. an over- 

 weening love for absolutely formal gardening ; for the tra- 

 ditions of our English ancestry are strong, and we think we 

 have a true preference for landscape-gardening. Our belief 

 that we cannot be artistic without being unnatural is not 

 self-confessed, as it was in France in the time of Louis 

 Quatorze. Like many other beliefs in respect to art, it is a 

 sort of groping desire for we know not exactly what. It 

 would probably declare itself to be a desire to blend the 

 beauties of Nature and of Art, which is precisely what it 

 ought to be ; but when analyzed by its results it shows 

 very clearly as a desire to be "artistic" in defiance of 

 Nature. And it has become as conventional in its mani- 

 festations as it is unintelligent in the crude feeling upon 

 which these are based. 



Not even the formal gardens of the seventeenth century 

 were more alike in essence and in treatment than are most 

 of our American pleasure-grounds. This one fact alone 

 should show their owners that they are on a wrong track ; 

 for the key-note of landscape-gardening, if the term means 

 anything at all, must be perpetual variety between one 

 work and another. No two natural landscapes are alike, 

 and within a very few miles we always find many which 

 are surprisingly unlike in radical character and general 

 effect as well as in details. Therefore, an art which is 

 based upon the study of Nature cannot be going right 

 when its products all bear a close family likeness to each 

 other, and this not only as regards a single stretch of 

 country-side, but as regards regions that lie far apart and 

 are wholly different in climate, geological conformation 

 and native vegetation. Expedients which are right for 

 one place on the island of Mount Desert would most likely 

 not be quite right for a neighboring place ; and certainly 

 they would not be right for one on the banks of the Hud- 

 son, in the mountains of North Carolina, on a stretch of 

 western prairie or the coasts of the Pacific Ocean. Yet far 

 and wide we find the same ideals, the same expedients ; 

 and the greater the natural beauty of the site the more apt 

 are these ideals and expedients to be wrong. For the es- 

 sence of all natural beauty is distinctness of character; and 

 the more individual this character is, the more charming 

 we are apt to find it, while the more certainly it is ruined 

 by the unintelligent application of conventional and stereo- 

 typed methods of " improvement." 



The true scheme for an artist in any branch is to follow 

 out Nature's ideals and suggestions, showing his own indi- 



