European and Japanese Gardens 
A FOUNTAIN 
GARDENS OF THE LUXEMBOURG 
insignificant and scattered elements of preceding practice 
into a finely realized ensemble which stands up proudly, over¬ 
shadowing the earlier time and shedding light over our own. 
Before his time there had been comparatively little varia¬ 
tion in the design of gardens. One work mimicked another, 
the same effects being reproduced with only slight changes to 
suit the individual requirements or difficulties of the client or 
the situation. No great underlying principles of design were 
recognized, and no effort had been made to get outside of 
the work and look at it in a large way, objectively. Errors 
and imperfections had constantly arisen from miscalculations 
of foreshortening, the easiest of faults to make, and the most 
difficult to obviate, except by long and dearly bought experi¬ 
ence. A plan or bird’s-eye view, as everyone knows, may be 
charming, and yet the execution prove very disappointing, 
owing to just this awful difference in the foreshortening. If 
this is true now, with numberless examples of landscape work 
from which to argue, on which to base one s judgment, how 
much greater must have been the difficulty in former times. 
I 2 I 
