CHAPTER 



XIV. 



PICTURESQUE STYLE OF FLOWER-GARDENS. 



§ 1. — THEIR GENERAL ARRANGEMENT. 



The picturesque style, as has already been 

 observed, is divided into three pretty 

 distinct kinds, viz. — the rough, the trivial, 

 and the polished or refined. In the lat- 

 ter, which is also called the modern or 

 English style, slight indications of the 

 gardenesque, and still slighter of the 

 architectural and geometrical, may with 

 propriety be blended. 



There are few words whose meaning 

 has been less accurately determined than 

 picturesque. If we consult a dictionary, 

 we find it is said to mean a thing " ex- 

 pressed happily as in a picture." In 

 connection with such natural objects as 

 surfaces covered with vegetation, in its 

 general acceptation, it means the same 

 thing. Sir Uvedale Price, in his " Essays 

 on the Picturesque," defines it to apply "to 

 every object and every kind of scenery 

 which has been, or might be, represented 

 with good effect in painting, just as the 

 word beautiful, when we speak of visible 

 nature, is applied to every object, and 

 every kind of scenery, that in any way 

 gives pleasure to the eye." Mr Gilpin 

 defines picturesque objects to be those 

 " which please from some quality capable 

 of being illustrated in painting and 

 again, in his letter to Sir Joshua Reynolds, 

 " such objects as are proper subjects for 

 painting." The late Sir Thomas Dick 

 Lauder says, " A picturesque object may, 

 in fact, be defined as that which, from the 

 greater facilities which it possesses for 

 readily and more effectually enabling an 

 artist to display his art, is, as it were, a 

 provocative to painting." 



Applied to gardening, we think, like 

 the equally modern terms gardenesque, 



sculpturesque, &c, the term means such 

 objects as are best fitted for displaying the 

 powers of the artist, or which would most 

 readily provoke him to the exercise of his 

 art. 



The picturesque style in gardening has 

 too often been misunderstood even in 

 another sense, and hence too many have 

 carried the wildness of what is properly 

 the trivial picturesque up to the very walls 

 of their houses — just reversing its posi- 

 tion, as it should always form the con- 

 necting link between the polished or 

 refined picturesque style and the park, 

 grove, or forest. Another misunderstand- 

 ing of the term has been an over affecta- 

 tion of simplicity, and an attempt merely 

 to imitate nature in its most unpolished 

 form. To this we may add a desire to 

 banish all embellishments of art from near 

 and around the house, where they ought 

 to be not only employed, but displayed. 

 " Wherever architecture," says Price, 

 " even of the simplest kind, is employed 

 in the dwellings of man, art must be 

 manifest, and all artificial objects may 

 certainly admit, and in many instances 

 require, the accompaniments of art ; for, 

 to go at once from art to simple unadorned 

 nature, is too sudden a transition, and 

 wants that sort of gradation and con- 

 gruity which, except in particular cases, 

 is so necessary in all that is to please the 

 eye and the mind." 



The gradations of the grounds from the 

 front of a mansion or house, however de- 

 void of architectural pretensions they may 

 be, should always begin with an appearance 

 of art ; and if ever the picturesque style 

 is to be indulged in to its fullest extent, 

 the transition must not be abrupt, but 

 gradual. In considering the pleasure- 



