PARK AND CEMETERY. 
141 
PARK NOMENCLATURE AND ACCOUNTS.* 
There seems to be needed more definite terms in 
which to express the meaning of the variations in the 
earth’s surface. Words of greater clearness to tell how 
we are influenced by natural scenery. While there are 
hundreds of words describing the difference, relatione, 
proportions and correspondenee of hills, rocks and 
water, yet we are in the A B C of nature’s language, and 
the most advanced have only spelled out a few short 
stories. 
The science of reading what is told in the modulation 
of the ground and its varied vegetation is not far advan- 
ced, and the art of the writing into a landscape thoughts 
and feeling is even less understood. The landscape 
painter has succeeded wonderfully well in giving mean- 
ing to the bit of landscape on canvas, but to make the 
ground itself speak to all who seek and listen is much 
more difficult. There is so much that cannot yet be 
interpreted. We must look for Nature’s Rosetta Stone 
in the heart and not in the mind. 
It would seem so far as if words for describing nature 
had been borrowed or transferred from other arts, with 
more or less appropriateness. It is only during the last 
century that an intelligent understanding of nature’s 
forms and moods has been sought, and that form of 
beauty known as the modern park is hardly fifty years 
old, most of the parks having been born during the 
last twenty vears. 
Park work may become the greatest of all arts for it 
embodies them all. Like painting it depends on lines 
and colors. Like sculpture it is governed by form 
and proportion. Like architecture it is not found ready 
made but has to be builded. It influences the heart as 
music does, and thoughts and feelings can be written 
into the landscape more fully and clearly than in a book, 
for nature speaks a universal language. To illustrate, 
a raging tempest on the sea coast, beating against the 
rocks,. produces similiar emotion in the savage as in the 
philosopher, in the people who witnessed it years ago, as 
well as those who see it now, or ever will see it as long 
as human life exists. 
While the active sublime impresses all, much of the 
quiet beauty, and many of the les er expressions of nature 
are past unheeded, not because they mean less, and many 
times they have a far greater meaning than the terrible 
storm, but because we have not yet learned to see, we 
have not yet definite words and terms to tell what we 
see, not yet a language in which our thoughts can crystal- 
ize, and become gems to give pleasure to others. I think 
it cm be truly said that not an acre of ground is with- 
out its own peculiar story to tell, and when known, will 
be found exceedingly interesting. If so, how much is 
waiting to be read. 
At present we seem to be reading the head lines of 
the boldest and most pronounced type. We are still 
groping after the big letters of the alphabetical block of 
our childhood md putting next each other such letters 
as suit our fancy, w th not much regard as to whether 
they spell a word or not. 
*Paper read at the Detroit convention of the American Park and Out- 
door Art Association. By G. A. Parker, Hartford, Conn, 
We are just beginning to interpret that plot of ground 
which is to be made into a park, and to write into it 
that which will make every man, woman and child better 
and stronger for having been in its presence. 
Beauty is of the mind and not of the body. It is 
more than skin deep, it is soul deep. He who only sees 
things, and makes something like what he has seen is a 
mechanic, while an artist is one who gives his thoughts 
and feelings a phys cal expression. If by harmonious 
sounds full of rhythm and meaning, he is a musician or 
an orator. If by line and color, a painter, if by form 
and proportion, a sculptor; if by the ornamentation of 
a building, an architect. If by the forming and planting 
of the ground, then a landscape architect, or it seems 
to me more suitable, a landscape artist. 
Landscape art is the only one which is alive. It 
differs from all others in that its pigments are living, 
active organic life. Every part of our picture is in the 
midst of and under the constant influence of all of 
Nature’s forces. This life and these forces make our 
work constantly changing, never twice alike. Its lights 
and its shadows, its forms, and substances in all its moods, 
are real. It is not merely a picture that looks like real. 
A painting or statue, a song or a poem, an architec- 
tural building, or engineering structure, when done stay 
done, but landscape art is constantly changing, ever 
completing, yet always beginning some new beauty. It 
is a book in which something new is always being written, 
and when its language is translated into English, it 
should be by clear and well defined terms. How great 
this need is can be known by park reports and reports 
of lane scape architects. While we cannot all be an 
Olmsted or an Eliot, and write masterfully, yet we may 
hunger after better told stories ef park work. 
To students of park reports I need not say how 
poverty stricken they are of all that relates to what the 
park is. They give financial statements, tell of the work 
done, and include some very fine pictures. But they do 
not tell what they have tried to write the ground, nor 
the interpretation of what is already there. This is done 
almost entirely for want of terms and words which 
specially mean just what would be said. In many re- 
ports there is clearly shown a desire and effort to tell 
these things. Who has not stood before beautiful scenery 
and been at a loss to express themselves. Why then 
should we expect those who write reports to coin words? 
Words do not come for the asking. They are born 
from the pent up necessity to give expression to an over- 
flowing heart. Park language will be years in growing, 
yet the time has come when some words should be clearly 
defined and written into our vocabulary. 
Take the word Park, what does it mean? What sort 
of a thing does that word bring before the minds of 
people? If we go to the dictionary we learn but little. 
If we go to the different plots of ground to which that 
word is applied, it will have a wonderful variation of 
meaning. From the half acre lot, which an enterprising 
speculator has cut into tiny house lots to the great forest, 
from the stately and beautiful to the gingerbread method 
of ornamentation. Now I do not intend to give defin- 
ations, only illustrations, and in my own mind, this 
