Artificial Rockwork 
masonry, bases for architecture, and even 
statuary and walls of houses, and separate 
constructions of many kinds, grottoes, foun¬ 
tains, sepulchral and other monuments. One 
of the most appropriate and impressive 
gravestones that can be devised is an un¬ 
wrought boulder with a simple inscription. 
All these uses, and many more, do not differ 
from those of traditional architecture of arch 
and column and the orders. And if we look 
about us we shall see that when structures 
of rocks are bad, they are bad in much the 
same way as those of stone or brick, uncon- 
structive, irrational, pretentious, inadequate, 
inappropriate and lacking in the evidence 
of such things as can be only felt and are felt 
in every building of good design. Rock- 
work must not fail in these respects, any 
more than a design for a church or hospital. 
While in estimating it one must not forget 
that this is garden decoration in which a fan¬ 
ciful, eccentric, or grotesque feeling inadmis¬ 
sible in formal architecture is often welcome 
and good, such questions as these must be 
put: Is it necessary ? Is it logical and sen¬ 
sible ? Is it constructive ? Is it fitting to its 
surroundings ? Is it well proportioned and 
harmonious, and, in short, is it in good taste, 
when measured by rockwork standards ? 
And if not all or any of these things, why not ? 
All these questions the maker or possessor of 
artificial rockwork should ask, and answer as 
well as he can. Perhaps he is impelled to 
support a bank with a wall of rough stones, or 
use them as a mere accompaniment to flowers 
and foliage, or combine them into an isolated 
object, a stand for a sundial, vase or statuette, 
steps, or a support for a vine, because he feels 
that such a thing is needed in some particular 
place, to serve some particular useful and 
artistic purpose; let him in doing it fulfill all 
the conditions as well as he can, but whether 
in the end he does it right or not, and makes it 
in any sense a work of art, must depend, as in 
all artistic effort, on the personal equation. 
Such uses as these and such questions as 
these belong to formal architecture as well as 
to rockwork, and the answers to them are not 
dissimilar, just about as complete, and no 
more. 
Mountain Sheep Range, Bronx Park, New York 
166 
