290 
PARK AND CEMETERY. 
PICTURES IN PARK CEMETERIES 
An address before the St. Louis Convention of the Association of American Cemetery 
Superintendents, by John Noyes, Landscape Gardener, Missouri Botanical Gardens. 
I have often been impressed with the un- 
usual opportunities offered by cemeteries in 
general, for the creation of views. In a 
few of the cemeteries that I have had the 
make fine photographic pictures, but in real- 
ity are unattractive because of the ill-kept 
lawns, the ragged road edge or the un- 
healthy condition of the plantings. This 
Rimdamemtal TormC) or Picture: Comstruictiom 
FTtorv 1-I.R. PooR.r.'5 " Pictorial Compositiom" 
pleasure of looking over, these opportuni- 
ties have been recognized, and many beau- 
tiful views have resulted; but in others, 
too numerous to mention, the few really at- 
tractive views are apparently entirely acci- 
dental. The so-called park cemeteries of 
today, of course, present the best oppor- 
tunities. This is true principally because 
of the restrictions imposed on the numbers 
of monuments allowed (and the approval 
of their design and size), and the re- 
strictions on the plantings, the general 
maintenance, etc. Obviously, the fewer 
monuments in a view the better, and the 
more attractive they are then the more 
chance for a pleasing ensemble. 
The ideal cemetery is a memorial park 
and it should also be a gallery of beautiful 
views and pictures, a place where all the 
people of the city and visitors to the city 
should go as quickly as they would go to 
the art museum to see the famous paintings. 
The really fine cemeteries are usually bet- 
ter maintained than the city parks, and no 
matter how well designed the latter may 
be, the park cemetery will usually present 
the greener lawn and the better kept 
plantings. Many views in our best parks 
present all the essentials of good pictures, 
is not an arraignment' of park management 
in any way. The condition of our parks 
is usually the unavoidable result of allow- 
ing the people to tramp at will over every 
available square foot of park land. This is 
necessary and commendable. We cannot 
place “Keep Off’’ signs all over our public 
parks, and design and maintain them only 
for beautiful views. In a cemetery we can 
do this to a limited extent at least ; we do 
not have the immense crowds that frequent 
the public parks, and those that do come 
can be made to cbey the rules. Again, the 
size of openings in parks is usually gov- 
erned lay practical necessity, while in the 
cemetery they may be governed principally 
by aesthetic considerations, giving the de- 
signer an opportunity to have his views al- 
most as he wants them. 
In this discussion, I will consider briefly 
the analyses of the pictures to be seen in 
the ideal park cemetery. For convenience, 
I will deal with the analyses under three 
headings — Views, Vistas and True Pictures. 
“Views” here will be a general term, in- 
cluding all ordinary views that one would 
get in a park cemetery, whether distant or 
near. “Vistas” will refer to narrow views 
and “True Pictures” to views that obey 
certain rules of composition. I will elabo- l 
rate on these three headings as I come to i 
them. 
First, however, let us review briefly the i 
principal materials that compose the views | < 
in our park cemeteries. These are the sky, j 
the plantations (trees, shrubs, etc.), the 
lawns, walks and drives, the structures 
(chapel, mausoleums, monuments, etc.), 
lakes and ponds, brooks and rivers, light 
and shade, and atmospheric conditions. All 
of these so-called materials are more or 
less controllable except the sky, the at- 
mospheric conditions and light and shade. 
In good landscape design, every problem is 
dominated to a certain extent by a motif 
or theme. In a park or private estate it ! 
may be anything — a building, a grove of 
trees, a stream, an old quarry, or even a 
building material. And so in a cemetery 
there should be a pervading theme, and 
this probably would be the structures, the 
chapel perhaps the most dominant, and the 
lesser structures of varying importance. < 
Therefore in a majority of views one or 
more structures would show. Usually by I 
far the greater part of the view will be 
composed of lawn (or perhaps a body of 
water in place of the lawn), foliage and 
sky. 
Returning again to the classification of 
“Views” proper, let us consider first the 
unframed, distant, panoramic view, such as / . 
we get from an eminence looking across a 
valley, or the view from any point where 
the principal objects are in the distance, 1 
the foreground being comparatively unim- 
portant. Here several monuments may be 
seen. If some are ugly, hide them with 
plantings. A suggestion of a building is 
usually better in a view than the whole, f 
and here, too, merely showing a hint ; in 
VIEW FROM OFFICE STEPS. MOUNTAIN 
VIEW CEMETERY, OAKLAND, CAL. 
i 
