OF LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTS 105 



to our door-steps. No finished work of architecture should be merely placed upon the 

 ground without treatment of that ground, and if, as is often in the case of summer resi- 

 dences, the buildings are set in a wilderness, there should be a gradual modulation from 

 the building to the wilderness. All of which implies a constant study of ever-changing 

 conditions, and a mutual accord between the work of architects and of landscape architects, 

 which would be of marked benefit to both. 



In the subsequent discussion, Mr. Caparn remarked that there were two kinds of vistas— the 

 architectural vista which must be stopped by some object, and the informal, indefinite vista, such as that of 

 a valley between two ranges of hills, which should fade away. It was the feehng for this kind of expression 

 that gave rise to the school which abolishes boundaries. It was, perhaps, the lack of scale referred to by 

 Mr. Walker that gave the feeling of inhumanity to Versailles, the true expression of those who created it. 

 The principal vista was not stopped, though an architectural one, except by the setting sun in summer. 

 Was it not possible that Le Notre had taken the sun itself, the emblem of Louis XIV, as the principal 

 motive of his composition? 



Mr. Walker said that, in speaking of vistas, he was speaking only of those of streets. The vista at 

 Versailles was always stopped by the landscape, and architectural vistas always should be stopped. At 

 Budapest the boulevard is significant because of its unstopped length. An instance of a fine, unstopped 

 vista was at Hampton Court. 



ESTTERESTING FACTS IN REGARD TO THE INCEP- 

 TION AND DEVELOPMENT OF CENTRAL PARK 



By SAMUEL PARSONS, JR. 

 (Meeting of February 11, 1908) 



AS the general conception of the idea of laying out a big park in the city of New 



r\ York was largely identified with the efforts of A. J. Downing, I cannot hope to 



explain the movement which resulted in the establishment of Central Park in better 



words than has been done by Mr. Wm. A. Stiles, Editor of "Garden and Forest," in his 



article advocating the erection of a monument to Andrew Jackson Downing as follows: 



THE DEBT OF AMERICA TO A. J. DOWNING 



"No one who has looked into the history of public parks in American cities, and the 

 development of the public sentiment which brought them into being, will deny that the 

 strongest impulse which the movement received at the outset came from Andrew Jackson 

 Downing. Mr. Downing was bom with a strong love of nature, and, as his father was a 

 nurseryman, he was brought up in a calling that increased his interest in trees and planting. 

 Reared almost in sight of many of the old places on the Hudson which had been planned and 

 planted by Parmentier and others of that older school, he learned, while still young, that 

 a landscape could be made impressive by the simplest and most natural treatment. As 

 he was to become our first authoritative writer on the art of landscape gardening, the whole 

 country has occasion to be thankful that he was in this way led to adopt what was then 

 called the English style of gardening, in which, to quote his own words, 'the spirit of nature, 

 though softened by art, always furnished the essential charm, thus distinguishing it from 

 the French or Italian style, where one sees the effects of art slightly assisted by nature.' 



