TEXTBOOK OF LANDSCAPE GARDENING 
Every work of art must be pleasing to the senses. Music 
pleases the ear; good landscape pleases the eye. This element of 
sensuous pleasure is essential. It has sometimes been argued that 
art must satisfy the intelligence; also that it must satisfy the moral 
judgment. Neither statement is true. Art is independent of logic 
and of morals, though either one may be brought in at times to the 
manifest advantage of art. 
Art is to be understood as distinguished from science. “Science 
is classified knowledge.” Art is the pursuit of beauty. Science 
seeks to know the truth, to defend the truth and to overthrow what 
is false. Art strives only to know what is beautiful, to defend the 
beautiful, and to rid the world of everything ugly. 
The Field 
Landscape gardening has for its field of operations “all outdoors” 
in a quite literal sense. Some of the main purposes, however, are 
the following: (1) To improve home grounds in order that the 
exterior of every home shall be clean, orderly and beautiful. (2) 
To improve public grounds in the same way and for the same reasons. 
This branch of landscape gardening is called Civic Art (see Lessons 
37-48). (3) To select, protect, and make accessible the best examples 
and types of the native landscape, as is done in National and State 
parks (see Lessons 56-62). (4) To interpret the beauty of the 
landscape. 
Styles 
It is customary to recognize several different styles in landscape 
gardening. Style may be defined as the national or racial quality 
in landscape gardening. In this art the word style has a meaning 
wholly different from that given to it in the other arts, especially in 
literature. 
The styles usually mentioned are the English, the Italian and 
the Japanese; but there exist, at least theoretically, also a Chinese 
style, a Persian style, an Egyptian style, etc. The English, Italian 
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