ART WHICH MENDS NATURE 



speak of the landscape as having no compo- 

 sition. But Olmsted and Vaux made 

 compositions which were satisfying from 

 all points of view. Instead of painting a 

 landscape on canvas to be enjoyed from 

 a point twenty feet exactly in front of the 

 frame, the real landscape, — composed by a 

 proper artist, is enjoyed from every side, 

 and from every distance. The landscape 

 gardener never undertakes anything sim- 

 pler than a cyclorama. 



Another great test has to be met in 

 the changes brought by passing years. The 

 sculptor's marble rests in proverbial de- 

 fiance of time, but in the gardener's picture 

 the elements are always fluent. The trees 

 grow, the flowers die away, and even the 

 paths and water-courses change. As a 

 rule, the gardener must wait a number of 

 years for Nature to complete the picture 

 which his imagination has planned. Mean- 

 while he presents a series of tentative 

 sketches, changing them every year, every 

 one beautiful and possibly perfect in itself 

 up to the top of the scale. Then for a 

 day the picture is finished. From that 

 point the garden may go slowly down in 

 picturesque decay, and even this may be 



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