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i,. MAAM
EUROPEAN AND JAPANESE GARDENS
European and Japanese Gardens .
Papers read before
The American Institute of Architects
^^£o^.^i\ (^Aj~-r\r^
ITALIAN GARDENS. By A. D. F. Hamlin
ENGLISH GARDENS. By R. Clipston Sturgis
FRENCH GARDENS. By John Galen Howard
JAPANESE GARDENS, ^v K. Honda
Edited for The American Institute of Architects
By Glenn Brown, Secretary
PHILADELPHIA :
HENRY T. COATES & CO.
1902
UGHTED, 1902
T. COATES & Co.
;es i^- So
Phi LA
INTRODUCTION
Only within a very recent period have architects of
the United States appreciated the fact that the garden
should be designed in connection with the house. To
encourage and popularize this fact the Committee of
Arrangements for the Thirty-fourth Annual Convention
of the American Institute of Architects determined to
make the subject of Gardens one of the principal topics
of consideration. It was fortunate to have been able
to secure papers from those who were such enthusiastic
and scholarly students of the field which each presented
in their papers to the Institute. The articles were
read in Washington, D. C, December 14th, 1900, and
they produced such a favorable impression that it was
thought proper by the Board of Directors to have
them, together w^ith the illustrations, printed so that
their influence would be of a more permanent value.
x\fter due consideration by the Board the publication
of the material, under the supervision of the Institute,
was given to The Architectural Publishing Company of
Philadelphia. In the work as issued the authors have
in some cases enlarged the scope of their papers and
many illustrations in addition to those presented to
the Institute have been inserted in the present volume.
88843
CONTENTS
PAGE
The Italian Formal ( Garden ii
English Ctardens 67
French Gardening and Its Master 97
Japanese Gardens 131
Notes on a Japanese CiArden in California 159
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Italian Gardens :
Villa Corsini, Stairway
Front i
Villa Corsini, Detail of the Stairway
Villa Lante, (General View
The Plan
" ■ Approach to Central Fountain . .
" Fountain and Stairway
" The Central Fountain
" Small Fountain
ilia Pia, Bird's-eye View
Plan of Casino and Terrace
la Caprarola, The Lower Fountain
Fountain of The (ioblet ....
ilia Borghese, Fountain
" Temple of yEsculapius
" The Casino
■' Small Fountains and Sculpture .
Avenue
" Wall Fountain
ilia d'Este at Tivoli, Bathing Pool
" " " The Palace and Terracing
" " " Ruined Water-Organ . .
The Plan
" " " Lower Level and Pools .
Caserta, Approach to Rear of the Palace ....
" Water Course
" Upper Cascade and Action (iroup . .
" Central Feature of Water Course ....
(reneral \'iew of A\enue
Villa Colonna, Entrance (Gateway
Villa Pamfili Doria, The Plan
\'iew trom the Terrace . .
Royal \'illa Castello, Fountain
\'illa Albani, \'iew from Colonnade
Fountain and Terrace
^lece
PAGE
63
10
21
29
35
37
46
13
14
16
32
17
19
26
34
43
60
17
22
33
54
39
20
40
41
41
42
23
24
25
27
28
44
Italian CiARDkxs — Coiitiniicii : page
\'illa Alhani. The Central I'ountain 45
Entrance Ciatc 53
^'illa (I'llstc on Lake ("omo. Cascade of Hercules 30
l'H)l)oli Cardens, [''ountain 36
.\\eniie 47
Ilex Tunnel 48
Amphitheatre 49
'• •• luitrance and Rear of I'itti I'alace 52
The Hill Walk 58
^■illa Petraia, Fountain 46
Villa Medici. The Plan 50
Farnese (iardens, Section and Pers|)eitive (Drawings) 51
Villa Aldobrandini, The Plan 55
" " The Chateau d'Eau 56
Villa Torlonia — Conti, Water Works 57
Isola Bella 59
Hillside Cardens near Naples 62
Enc;lish Cardens :
View from Montecute House 66
A Terrace at Montecute 68
Flowers against the Terrace \\a\\ at Montecute 69
A Double Bordered Path 70
A Garden backed with Trees 71
The Gardens at Frankleigh 72
A Shaded Walk at Frankleigh 73
A Walk before the House 74
On the Terrace at Frankleigh 75
A Ciarden Corner 76
Box Bordered Beds 77
Terraces 78
A Small House-Court 78
A Broad Walk to the House 79
The More l-ormal Garden, ^^'ilton 80
The Garden Walk 81
Gardens of Heathfield House 82
A Modern House and Garden 83
Cirass Terraces and Garden-House 84
Gardens of Kiddington Hall 85
The Si)acious I-Tfect at Eynsham Hall 86
The Wall of a Modern Garden 87
Ex(;lish (tAKDKXs — Continued: page
A Level Stretch • . . . 88
A Pool 89
A \\'ell-lai(l Lawn 90
A (harden Path 90
The Oblong Pool 91
An Outlook from the House 92
A Hedge (Gateway 93
French Gardens :
\'ersailles, The P)asin of Latone 96
Lead \'ase 97
The Plan 98
" Basin of Latone and the Tapis \'ert 99
P>asin of Latone and the Palace
The Basin of Ajjollo
The liasin of Ceres
" (irove of the Colonnade
" The Ikisin of the Dragon
*' The Orangery
The (xarden of the Orand Trianon
Fontainebleau, The Cross of Franchard
(xorge of the Medlars
The Plan
" The Palace from the Park
" The Palace from the Parterres
'' The Gardens
Basin of the Cascade
Chantilly, The Chateau from the Lake
" The Gardens
" " The Isle of Love "
Marly, Plan of the Park
The Tuileries, (ieneral View
" A Promenade
" The Main Avenue
The Tuileries and the Louvre
Luxembourg, The Medici Fountain
" A P^ountain
Gardens and Palace
The Plan
St. Cloud. The Plan
The Park
19
French (jardkns — Confi/ii/ed : pace
The (Irand Cascade 126
" Ruins of the Palace 127
St. Ciermain. The Terrace 128
JaPANKSK CiARIiKXS :
Prince Hotta's (iarden 130
Mangwanji Ciarden 131
Plate I — Hill Garden : Finished Style 132
Duke Shimazu's Garden 133
The Mikado's Garden, Tokio 134
The Fukiage Garden 135
Garden of the Imperial Palace 136
Stone Lanterns, Uyeno 137
Sorinto, Nikko 138
Fukagawa Garden 139
Plate II — Hill Garden ; Intermediary Style 141
Plate III — Hill (iarden; Rough Style 141
Plate IV — Flat (iarden ; Finished Style 142
Kasuga, Nara 143
Bracket Bridge, Fukagawa Garden 144
A (Gentleman's (iarden, F3ancho 145
Plate ^' — Flat (iarden ; Intermediary Style 146
Plate VI — Flat (iarden ; Rough Style 146
Stone Steps, Hakone Temple 147
Kunoozan Temple at Shizuoka 148
Plate ^TI — (iarden Lanterns 149
Plate \l\l — Water-Basins and Lanterns 149
A Tea-House Garden, Tokio 150
(iarden of the Akasaka Rikiu 152
Plate IX — Garden Fences 153
Plate X — Garden Gateways 154
Plate XI — (iarden Bridges 155
Plate XII — Ciarden Arbors 155
A Japanese (iARDEN in California :
(ieneral View 158
The F^ntrance 159
Mowers in Pots 160
Inside the F^ntrance 161
Summer- House and Stream 162
THE ITALIAN FORMAL GARDEN
^r Prof. A. D. F. Hamlin
THE ITALIAN FORMAL GARDEN
By A. D. F. HAMLIN
AUJUNCT PROFESSOR OF ARCHITECTURE, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
I.
A GARDEN is a portion of the earth's surface humanized.
Nature is subjected to the designer's will ; trees, grass,
flowers and shrubs are made to do his bidding, and
an ordered design takes the place of the capricious wildness
of the primitive growth. Gardening, as one of the decorative
arts, deals with the materials of the earth's surface, and the
vegetation and water which dixersify and embellish it. In any
style of gardening the results of the designer's labors are, and
must be, artificial, whether he seek to counterfeit the appear-
ance of the primitive meadow, forest and thicket, or to arrange
his combinations of earth, rock, plants and water upon some
arbitrary and conventional system. The different schools of
the art are distinguished largely by the degree to which they
incline towards one or the other of these systems of treatment : —
towards naturalistic picturesqueness, or towards monumental
and artificial regularity. The Italian villa gardens of the
Renaissance are the highest representative of the second
system.
Gardening is an art of peace and luxury, and, as an
accompaniment of buildings, follows in the wake of architec-
ture. " Without it," says Bacon, writing in Elizabeth's time,-
" buildings and palaces are but gross handiworks ; and a man
shall ever see that when ages grow to civility and elegancy,)
men come to build stately sooner than to garden finely." As(
an art of luxury it fared poorly in the Dark and Middle Ages ;
but when the Renaissance revived the arts of ancient Rome in
the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and the increasing sta-
bility of the social order permitted the indulgence of personal
luxury, gardening was revived with the other arts of antiquity,
and its practice modelled after the suggestions offered by the
ruins of ancient Roman prototypes. What these were we may
D. H. HJLL UBRARY
The Italian Formal Garden
learn from descriptions made familiar in the letters of Cicero
and Pliny. These i)icture extensix e domains, terraced, g^raded,
embanked, halustraded, refreshed with fountains, adorned with
every kind of edifice for ornament and rest, and beautified with
every variety of foliage of trees, \ines and shrubs. They pre-
sent the counterpart of almost every feature characteristic of
the Italian villa gardens of the sixteenth century. How com-
plete and perfect the modern reproduction could be is evi-
denced by the famous Villa Barberini at Castel Gondolfo,
sixteen miles southeast from Rome, w^hich Lanciani considers
not only the finest he has ever seen, "but also (to quote his
own words) the one which comes nearer than any other to the
type of an ancient siilmrbaumu. ... Its general plan and
outline follow precisely the plan and outline of the glorious
villa of Domitian. . . . The ancient ruins, the foundation
walls of the huge terraces, the nymphaea and other remains,
are so completely concealed and screened by a thick growth
of ivy, ferns and other evergreens, that one feels, more than
sees, the antiquity of the place. B\- a singular coincidence no
tree, no shrub, no flower, no bud that is not purely classic
seems to be allowed to live in this magnificent domain. No
flower is allowed to diversify the emerald green of the lawns,
except the classic rose and violet, and to make the illusion
more perfect, flocks of peacocks have selected the groves of
this villa for their abode." '=' The Villa Pia in the Vatican gar-
dens is another excellent reproduction in modern dress of the
Roman conception of a villa of modest dimensions. Not only
in Rome, but scattered also throughout central Italy, and along
the Bay of Naples, were innumerable remains of antique villas,
overgrown with ivy and weeds, but awaiting only the touch of
the artist to bloom anew in fresh loveliness ; their terrace-
walls and stairs rebuilt, their water courses and fountains again
musical with running water, their thickets trimmed, and flower-
beds once more blossoming on their terraced levels.
These ancient gardens were extremely formal. No plant
was allow^ed to grow uncontrolled. Trees were pruned, clipped,
trained and trimmed into the semblance of any and every form
except that of tree : a species of art called topiary ivork, which
was revived in the Renaissance and carried to extremes by the
gardeners of Holland and England in the seventeenth and
* Ancient Rome in the Litjht of Recent Excavations, pp. 279-280.
European and Japanese Gardens
The Italian Formal Garden
"^m^wi^ /
PLAN OF CASINO AND TERRACE OF THE VILLA PIA
Designed by Pirro Ligorio, 1540
European and Japanese Gardens
eighteenth centuries. It is evident that the love of nature, as
nature, for its own sake, is a purely modern sentiment, due in
large measure to the influence of the poets of the eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries. The ancients regarded nature as a
servant, not a mistress, and indulged little sentiment for nature
in the abstract. The same is largely true of the Renaissance
gardeners. They did not seek to counterfeit the meadows and
forests, the hills and vales of wild nature or to bring trees and
shrubs and topography into any semblance of the picturesque
and accidental combinations of a natural landscape. Their
gardens, and preeminently those of Italy, were each designed
as a decorative setting to the palace or villa, or as pleasure-
grounds in which what was most pleasing was the human ele-
ment— the evidence of design, symmetry, order, balance, con-
trast, ornament ; not the aspect of natural growth, but the
evidence of nature subdued to human control.
II.
The steps by which the Renaissance garden, based upon
these suggestions, reached final form, I have been unable to
trace. No very early example remains to us, at least in the
shape in which it was designed. With the progress of the art
and changes in taste the earliergardens must have all been made
over, for a garden is not, like a building, a finality when once fin-
ished. It changes from season to season, and the growth and
decay of its vegetation alike alter its pristine aspect. We
know, however, that before the close of the fifteenth century
the gardens of Naples were celebrated for their beauty, for
Charles VIII, of France, writing in 1495 to Pierre de Bourbon,
waxes eloquent in praise of those which had come into his pos-
session in that city. But it was not till about 1540 that any
garden receixed the form in which we know it to-day, e\'en in
its general features. The classical tendencies of architecture
and decoration had by this time reached their highest and finest
development in the works of men like Peruzzi, Antonio da San
Gallo the Younger, Vignola, Giulio Romano, Pirro Ligorio, and
others. The influence of the taste of Bramante and Raphael
was still potent, and the extra\'agances of the Baroque style
were still in the future. The papal court had then reached its
greatest splendor, and Roman society had begun to be domi-
The Italian Formal Garden
European and Japanese Garden;
The Italian Formal Garden
nated by the great ecclesiastical princes and the formidable
array of Pope's nephews who monopolized the higher posts of
Church and State. Most of the finest \illas were built for car-
dinals and church dignitaries, of whom the majorit}' sustained
this dubious relation to the head of the Church. The Lante, at
Bagnaia, first built in 1477 for Cardinal Riario, was, about 1550,
remodelled by X'ignola for one of the Farnese nephews. To
this family also belonged the imposing castle and beautiful
grounds at Caprarola, also Vignola's work. The superb Villa
d'Este at Tivoli, one of the earliest as well as finest of extant
works of the kind, was designed about 1540 by Pirro Ligorio,
for the Cardinal Ippolito d'Este. At Frascati, the ancient Tus-
culum, is an extraordinary group of contiguous villas — the
Aldobrandini, Falconieri, Mandragone, and others, all built for
cardinal princes by such artists as Delia Porta, Giovanni Fon-
tana, Olivieri, Martino Lunghi, Flaminio Ponzio, and others. At
Rome the Borghese Villa, originally built for the dukes of
Altemps, was enlarged in 1605 by (for) Cafi'arelli, nephew of
Paul V ; on attaining the cardinalate he assumed the name of
Borghese. The Farnese, Farnesina, Pamfili Doria, Albani, and
a dozen others, owe their existence to the wealth and extra\a
gance of these churchly lords. With the decline of the secular
power of the Church consequent upon the Reformation, the
social conditions out of which these vast establishments had
grown, slowly passed away ; the building of new villas ceased,
and it has been only with the utmost dif^culty that some of these
vast and wealth-consuming estates have since been maintained
in even tolerably perfect condition. Not a few have run to
decay, and are to-day endowed with the new and melancholy
charm of ruin. Nature has reconquered the domain where
she was held captive to man's caprice, and vines, trees, shrubs,
grass and dust have done their best to obliterate the work of
human hands. Other gardens have been sold under the ham-
mer or cut up into building lots, and there is no likelihood that
many new ones will arise in their places, for Italy is poor, and
there is no such concentration of wealth in strong families as
to make probable the creation of new splendors of the kind.
Those that remain are, therefore, doubly precious ; they are
unique, for no modern imitation can reproduce their antique
charm ; and nowhere else in the world is there the environ-
ment of atmosphere, associations and art which envelops these
18
European and Japanese Gardens
The Italian Formal Garden
European Ax\d Japanese Garden;
i^^ Ha i&fli ti'^
ESSENTIAL FEATURES OF THE VILIA GARDEN"
Plan of Villa Lante At Bagr
ancient and glorious
estates with such
loveHness of pros-
pect and setting".
Given the condi-
tions which I have
tried to sketch, it is
easy to understand
the results that came
about in the domain
of landscape gard-
ening. The churchly
patricians who built
the villas were no
recluses, seeking the
solitude of the glens
and forests to hold
communion only
with themselves and
nature. They w^re
the i)owerful, proud
and wealthy leaders
of a society conspic-
uous for its worldli-
ness and love of dis-
play. Like true Ital-
ians they loved the
open air, but unlike
the lords of Eng-
land and France,
they had no taste for
the chase, and the
necessities of their
state precluded their
resorting to distant
castles embowered
in the forests or hid-
den in the gorges
of the Apennines.
It was to the villa
that thev fled for
The Italian Formal (jArden
THIS IS TRUE OF THE GARDENS AS THEY APPEAR TO-DAY'
The Palace and Terracing
Villa d'fste, Tivoli
European and Japanese Gardens
refuge. Its "casino," or little house, was less a residence
than a pleasure-house for their hours of relaxation or social
amusement. Its alleys and terraces, walks and shelters took
the place in their life which piazzas and "living-halls" do
in ours ; in them they passed their leisure, walking with their
friends, reclining under the arbors, lulled by the sound of
the fountains; reading, meditating and conversing, or giving
A SOMEWHAT PRETENTIOUS GATEWAY'
Entrance to the Villa Colonna
23
The I faliAxN Formal Garden
PLAN OF THE GARDENS
24
European and Japanese Gardens
splendid entertainments to the brilliant companies that
resorted thither. Passionate collectors of antiquities, and
affecting, when they did not cherish it, an enthusiasm for
antique life, they made their gardens veritable museums,
even at last, counterfeiting anticjue ruins when they were
not fortunate enough to find them ready at hand on their
estates. The villa was thus no park, no reserved territory
left to the beauty of its natural wildness, no mere spread of
lawn diversified with trees and shrubs. It was designedlv an
artificial creation, an artistic cnscn/b/c, of which the house and
the gardens were distinct and complementary parts, the whole
treated as a decorative composition, in which each portion
and each detail played a definite role. It was formal and
artificial, it was refined and classical in style and detail, because
that was what the taste of the time demanded, and because no
other treatment befitted the antique fragments and sculptures
which formed the basis of their adornment.
But these villa gardens, with all their formal regularitv of
m^ .*
lil^
M
iKil^J
l^^wPPP™
W
'1.: A^-"~^'"
"
'^^^^^^^^ '^'' ^ ^
^^ ^^JAJ ^ ^— ^W . __
L ._.
THE JUXTAPOSITION OF ART AND NATURE
iew from the Terrace
Villa Pamfili Doria
The Italian Formal Garden
design, were and are still so beautiful that they have never
ceased to excite the admiration of every visitor. They were
designed by masters, men of taste and culture, filled with the
sense of beauty, who wrought in harmony with their environ-
ment and with the beauties of the prospect and atmosphere
about them. However questionable the taste of certain deco-
rative details, their general decorative effect is almost always
Casino, Villa Bopghese
THE CENTRAL FEATURE IS THE HOUSE OR CASINO'
excellent and in harmony with the fanciful and wayward beauty
of the gardens. At least this is true of the gardens as they ap-
pear to-day, the crumbling stuccoes and the masonry stained by
weather, tinged orange and green by lichens and mosses, over-
run with ivy and creeping roses, and contrasting richly with
the dark green of the stone pines behind and the ilex and
box in front. Their charm is not wholly of atmosphere and
color and rampant vegetation, nor merely the romantic half-
melancholy of their silent walks, their grass-grown terraces,
their whispering pines, and gentle decay. They possess a posi-
tive artistic beauty in the proportion and balance which control
26
European and Japanese Gardens
THE TERRACING IS WORTHY OF CAREFUL STUDY'
Royal Villa Castello
Near Florence
The Italian Formal Garden
the whole composition. There is enoui^^h architecture — not too
much ; the contrasts are ne\er too violent ; sculptures and
decorations are distributed with a rare sense of propriety ;
the water works are pleasingly \aried and judiciously placed.
Above all, scale is treated with consummate skill. A small
garden is not designed like a great one, nor a monumental
composition frittered away with pettv details.
LEVEL VILLA ALBANI
III.
The essential features of the Italian \illa gardens are easily
stated : first, the selection of a sloping site, cut into terraces
affording a varied prospect from their successive levels. Sec-
ondly, the distinctly architectural treatment of conspicuous
points and features of the design. Thirdly, the use of running
water in fountains and cascades upon each level of the design.
Fourthly, the formal arrangement of flower-beds, hedges and
28
European and Japanese Garden;
THE DECORATIONS OF ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE
Approach to Central Fountain
la Lante, Bagnaia
avenues so as to provide vistas closed by decorative structures,
and to offer at every turn a pleasing contrast in the juxtaposi-
tion of art and nature.
PZvery one of these elements has its origin in Roman prac-
tice, as shown not only by ruins, but by frescoes in Rome (as
in the Casino di Livia on the Palatine) and Pompeii. Each
has in a measure been adopted in the landscape gardening of
other countries, but rarely are all four elements combined as
they are in Italy. On the other hand, the Italian gardener
rarely or never employs the vast levels and long vistas of
French gardening, while, in the treatment of water, he avoids
the massive and lofty jets and immense basins which distin-
guish the gardens of Versailles. Toward the sloping lawns
and meandering paths of English and American grounds he
feels much as the Frenchman did who said, " Nothing is easier
than to lay out an English garden : one has only to make the
gardener drunk and then follow his meanderings."
The typical Italian villa — such, for instance, as the Villa
The Italian Formal Garden
Lante, at Bagnaia, near Viterbo, the work of Vignola, or Pirro
Ligorio's Villa Pia in the Vatican grounds, at Rome — com-
prises a rectangular territory of a few acres, rarely more than
ten or fifteen, its length twice or thrice its breadth, and the
major axis following the profile or slope of the hill on which it
is laid out. It is divided into three terraces (rarely two or four),
each faced by a stone retaining-wall, surmounted by a balus-
trade, and reached by broad stairways leading to the other
levels. The lower level, entered from the street by a somewhat
pretentious gateway, is the flower-garden proper; on the middle
level is the house or casino, with the more important architec-
tural accessories, such as colonnades, loggias, and summer
houses. Behind and above this, the third level, planted wdth
trees, and less formally treated than the other two, furnishes a
shady and secluded retreat, grassy under foot, leafy overhead,
musical with the song of birds and the trickle of water in the
Cascade of Hercules
DECORATIVE AND FESTAL CHARACTER"
At the Villa d'Este or
European and Japanese Gardens
fountain. From the point of view of design, the dense foHage of
this upper terrace serves as a foil and background for the more
open and artificial levels below it, and as a transition to the
wilder landscape of mountain and forest behind it.
The flower-garden is laid out in geometrical compartments
bordered by square-clipped hedges of box, within which flowers
and foliage plants are cultivated in beds forming elaborate
scroll-patterns. The level walks are of gravel. An elaborate
fountain adorns the central area, forming a focus and point of
interest for the whole design. A high stone wall surrounds the
garden on three sides ; it is usually covered with vines or hid-
den by a profuse growth of box, yew, ilex, cypress, and pine,
producing an impression of perfect seclusion with no oppres-
sive display of prison-like walls. On the fourth side is the
retaining-wall of the middle terrace, which forms a monu-
mental decorative background for this lower garden, and a
foundation and preparation for the elaborately architectural
treatment of the second level.
The central and dominant feature of the whole design is
the house or casino on the second level, on which it sometimes
advances to the front edge, as in the Pamfili Doria, its base-
ment, entered from the garden, forming in such cases the cen-
tral portion of the terrace wall. Designed chiefly as a pleasure-
house, for short sojourns and entertainments, its architecture
is usually of a festal and sometimes trivial character, perfectly
in harmony with its purpose, and almost always in keeping
with the fanciful, wayward charm of the gardens. Few of these
casinos are commendable as architectural compositions, but
the softening hand of time and the delightful beauty of the old
gardens, which improve with age, impart to these somewhat
dubious compositions an adventitious charm impossible to
imitate.
In the Villa Lante, at Bagnaia, near X'iterbo, there is an
interesting departure from the usual practice. Two houses, or
casiiii, stand one on either side of the central axis, permitting
an unobstructed axial vista through the whole extent of the
grounds, from top to bottom. Occasionally the casino is a
palazzo of considerable size, as in the Villa d'Este at Tivoli ;
while in the cases of the Pitti palace and the palace at Capra-
rola (the Villa Farnese), the entire \illa grounds lie behind the
residence.
31
The Italian Formal Garden
AIR OF PLAYFUL CAPRICE'
Fountain of the Goblet'
Villa Farnese at Caprarola
Coming down to specific details, the following features
deserve special attention :
First, the terracing of the Italian gardens is worthy of care-
ful study. Originating in the preference for sloping sites by
means of which successive and diftering prospects are secured
from the various levels, without interference of one with the
other, it became a means of admirable effects within the gar-
den itself. With its stairs, niches, grottoes, pilasters and balus-
trades, it was studied, proportioned and arranged with great
care, and usually with great success. An instructive contrast
in the treatment of the terraces appears between the abruptly
sloping Villa d'Este at Tivoli, and the nearly level Villa Albani
or the Ouirinal Gardens at Rome.
Secondly, tJie decorations of architecture and sculpture.
The judicious arrangement, distribution, and scale and balance
of the architecture have been noticed already, and its j)redomi-
nantlv decorative and festal character alluded to. This air of
32
European and Japanese Gardens
playful caprice is often carried to extremes, especially in the
later villas, but in general it is, and in its modern imitations it can
always be, kept within the bounds of good taste, so that every
feature shall not only be well placed and pleasing in its efiect,
in conjunction with the foliage, grass and flowers, but pleasing
also in itself as an architectural design. This was almost always
true of the designs of Vignola, Giulio Romano, and Pirro
Ligorio, l)ut not always of their successors. There is some-
times too sharp a contrast between the florid stucco decora-
tions of terraces and fountains and the classic dignity of the
antique fragments that adorn many of the gardens. Based, as
this style of gardening is, on the models and on the actual
remains of ancient Roman estates, it is most successful when
its adornments of architecture and sculpture are classic in spirit
and design, a
principle which
should not be lost
sight of in mod-
ern attempts at
this sort of gar-
dening. In the
Italian examples
the chief features
claiming atten-
tion may be cata-
logued as follows:
terrace - walls,
balustrades and
stairs, gate- ways,
fountains, loggias
and other aedi-
cules, exedras,
stone benches,
marble vases on
_ _^ _ high pedestals,
^." ^' termini, and stat-
uary in single fig-
ures or groups.
Every one of
these features is
PLAYFUL CAPRICE OFTEN CARRIED TO EXTREMES" , , j.
Ruined Water-cgan Villa d'Este. Tivoli Capablc of grCat
33
The Italian Formal Garden
ADORNMENTS . . . CLASSIC IN SPIRIT AND DESIGN '
Villa Borghese
European and Japanese Gardens
beauty of form, though requiring less fineness of execution
than monumental buildings deserve. The triviality of many
of the minor decorative figures and buildings of actual gardens
in Italy in execution and detail, is no doubt reprehensible, but
less offensive than one would imagine, because of their charm-
ing surroundings and the obviousness of their role, not as
works valuable intrinsically, but as mere adjuncts and features
in the general scenic efiect of the whole.
Thirdly, the trcatniciit of zvatcrm the fountains, cascades
and basins of these gardens exemplifies sound principles cor-
rectly applied. A very small volume of water is made to pro-
duce a maximum of decorative efiect, and the greatest possible
variety of effects, by repeated interruptions and changes of its
movement from the reservoir above the upper terrace down to
the last fountain basin in the flower-garden. Thrown up in
small jets, it is poured from basin to basin of the fountains, in
very thin but brilliant sheets or streams, to reappear, after
"A SMALL VOLUME OF WATER . . . BROKEN AGAIN AND AGAIN "
Lante Bagnaia
The Italian Formal Garden
THROWN UP IN SMALL JETS IT IS POURED FROM BASIN TO BASIN "
The Boboli Gardens Florence
passage through underground conduits, in the form of cas-
cades, in which its fall is broken again and again by marble
steps, basins and rockeries, massive cataracts, and lofty jets.
The roar and agitation of powerful masses of water were rarely
attempted or desired ; they would have been out of scale, so to
speak, out of harmony with the refined elegance of the gar-
dens. Great skill and taste were evinced in the design of the
architectural and sculptural elements of these water works,
which display generally the same sense of proportion and
scale that has been already referred to, and there is often a
touch of the grotesque, of humor and exaggeration in the
accompanying sculpture, which like that of some of the statues
on the terraces, enlivens the scene with a suggestion of
comedy.
Three typical examples of the handling of the water are
furnished by the Villas Lante at Bagnaia and d'Este at Tivoli,
and the palace gardens at Caserta. In the first-named, largely
36
European and Japanese Gardens
FOUR SUPPORTING FIGURES BEARING THE INSIGNIA OF THE FARNESE FAMILY"
The Central Fountain Villa Lante, Bagnaia
Vignola's work, the amount of water used is infinitesimal, and
all the fountains are treated with j^reat refinement of detail
and smallness of scale, while in the flower-garden the fountain
is chiefly sculptural, with four supporting figures bearing the
insignia of the Farnese Family, for whom it was built.
37
The Italian Formal Garden
At Tivoli, where there is too much water rather than not
enoug'h, and where the upper grades are very steep and the lower
ones very grackial, the upper terraces of the ViUa d'Este abound
in monumental fountains and cascades, as well as in the ruins
of innumerable trick fountains and aquatic eccentricities orig-
inally designed to be set in operation by the unwitting steps
of the \isitor. Among them was formerly a celebrated water
organ, now ruined and silent. The central cascade, or line of
cascades, was of great volume, proportioned to the large scale
of the whole villa, while on the lower, easy gradients, the water
flowed quietly into and through great basins, bordered with
vases, shaded with trees, and emptying by little cascades from
one to the other, till the water finally disappeared underground.
Carlo Fontana, rightly named, was the artificer of these water-
works. Several of the villas at Frascati, like the Mondragone
and the Aldobrandini, illustrate the same principles.
At Caserta we have the one example of the colossal in the
scale of the water works of an Italian garden. These grounds
were laid out by Van Vitelli in 1753, after a sojourn at Paris
and Versailles, where he had studied the vast landscape-works
and fountains of Le Notre. In the Caserta grounds, if he did
not better the instruction, he at least showed consummate skill
in the adaptation of its teachings to his special conditions,
wholly different from those at Versailles ; for the Caserta
grounds are but one thousand feet wide, extending back two
miles, first with a gentle grade and then by a steep ascent
reaching the summit of the thickly-wooded hill far behind the
palace. The water tumbles for nearly a mile over a channel
filled with broken rocks, which churn it white, so that it is
visible and effective even when seen from the palace two miles
away. It then passes through a succession of immense basins,
from each of which it issues by a cascade twenty or thirty feet
high, each differing essentially from the others, and several of
them adorned with statuary not always in the best taste. The
architectural treatment of the successive cascades is ingeniously
varied, and in several of them is conspicuously successful. A
strip of grass two hundred feet wide on either side, planted
with occasional flower-beds and flanked by wonderfully beauti-
ful ilex avenues next the side walls of the grounds, completes
the simple but effective plan of the gardens. Here the water
is purposely handled on a colossal scale, suited to the great
38
European and Japanese Gardens
The Italian Formal Garden
European and Japanese Gardens
A CHANNEL FILLED WITH BROKEN ROCKS'
Upper Cascade and Actaeon Group
The Italian Formal Garden
THE SIMPLE BUT EFFECTIVE PLAN OF THE GARDENS'
General View of Av
length of the grounds and to the vast size of the palace. It
is a royal park, not a private citizen's garden.
Fourthly, the tycatinent of the trees and grass is also char-
acteristic of the Italian gardens. The American and English
styles of park gardening, with broadly-sloping lawns sprinkled
over with clumps of shrubbery and groups of trees, in a stud-
iedly accidental and picturesque arrangement, with winding
walks and drives giving the sense of distance and ever-chang-
ing prospect, is not practised in the villa gardens, because
it represents a wholly different conception of purpose and
function from that which created them. Occasionally, as in
parts of the Borghese grounds, one finds broad meadows,
sloping lawns, and a natural or artificial wild-wood, but it is in
most cases sharply distinguished from the formal part of the
grounds, in which there is no mixing of the two sorts of
gardening.
Trees are used chiefly in two ways — first on the upper ter-
race and around the outskirts of the formal garden, to serve as
a picturesque background silhouetted with its stone pines and
42
European
AND
Japanese Gardens
cypresses or poplars against the sky, and contrasting in tiie
purple darkness of its evergreen foliage with the lighter and
gayer colors of the bright, sun-bathed architecture and garden
walls. These trees furnish shade, coolness and repose, and
in the older gardens they are sometimes of enormous size.
Secondly, they are used to form a\enues where the grounds
are sufficiently extensive, as in the Pamfili Doria Villa, the Villa
d'Este, or the Mattel Villa. Thirdly, at specified points in the
flower-garden, or even on the second terrace, to relieve the
THE TREATMENT OF TREES IS CHARACTERISTIC"
Avenue of the Villa Borghese Rome
formality, flatness or brilliancy of the parterres, gravel walks,
and marble pavements. The trees most in use are the stone
pine, poplar and cypress, for the more massive eftects ; palm
trees occasionally for isolated points of interest, and the ilex, box
and yew for hedges and for the smaller avenues ; these last
three being well adapted for topiary-work or tree-clipping on
account of their fine and very dense foliage. The stone pine
with its straight trunk and dignified outline, with its dark and
43
The Italian Formal Garden
European and Japanese Gardens
spreading top, is one of the most picturesque and decorative
of all trees for backgrounds and large efltects. The oak and
chestnut also abound on the upper terraces of Italian grounds
and in those wilder portions of wooded land which sometimes
surround the formal garden. The ilex is a low shrub-like tree,
of very slow growth but dense foliage, admirably suited for
those tunnel-like walks forming long, natural arbors, which in
■wmkMrvistmF:
CYPRESSES SILHOUETTED AGAINST THE SKY"
The Central Fountain
Villa Albani, Ror
the Boboli and other gardens are so delightful and restful a
resort.
Closely cropped grass is used only as an accessory feature
in the Italian formal gardens. The lawn, for its own sake,
rarely figures in the Italian designs except in those large, pub-
lic parks, which, like the Giardino Pincio and the Borghese
gardens at Rome, serve a function like that of our city parks.
The nearest approach to the lawn per se in the villas is in the
grassy amphitheatres of some of the larger gardens like the
45
The Italian Formal Garden
European and Japanese Gardens
Boboli at Florence, belonging to the Pitti Palace, and the
Borghese at Rome. These were terraced to afford an arena
and open-air seating for athletic sports and mummeries in the
olden time, and may not always haxe been covered with grass,
but they are very beautiful in their present condition of refresh-
ing greenness.
IV.
The garden, thus treated, was, as I have said, designed
under special conditions and for a particular purpose. It was
WHERE THE GROUNDS ARE SUFFICIENTLY EXTENSIVE'
The Boboli Gardens
intended first as the decorative setting for the social as well as
private life of a very rich, worldly and splendor-loving aris-
tocracy ; secondly, as an approach and environment for the
palace, villa or casino of the proprietor, with which it must form
an artistically congruous whole. It is evident that there could
be here no question of rivalry with other kinds of gardens. The
47
The Italian Formal Garden
vast park, with its drixes for iiorseback riding, its brooks and
bridges, its covers for game, its preserves for deer, all that
was peculiar and essential to the life of the English or French
nobleman, was wholly out of the question here. All the ideas
and conceptions of landscape gardening which, inherited from
our English and French ancestors, we have derived from their
ideal of the forest park, with its vast expanses of grass, thickets
and trees, trimmed out and smoothed down b}' the gardener's
care, and extended by art over other expanses at first destitute
LONG NATURAL ARBORS'
The Boboli Gardens, Florence
of shade or wanting in natural picturesc|ueness — these ideals
and conceptions were, perforce, excluded from the problem of
villa design. The two kinds of gardening serve diflierent pur-
poses and belong to different conditions. Each has its own
beauty, each is perfectly legitimate ; both systems alike com-
pel nature to do the designer's bidding, both involve the re-
modeling of the earth's surface, the destruction of some of
nature's productions, the recreation or substitution of others.
But they proceed upon dift'erent lines, by difterent methods,
48
European and Japanese Gardei
The Italian Formal Garden
Lu-iiU wt
_J"^^
A']
QlnaiiaaiiBflj
m ill) i I 111
0 J ffl |0J^ ^.9
]
toward different results. As an abstract and academic ques-
tion, controversy as to their relative merits is without signifi-
cance or reason. Such discussion has its place only where
specific prob-
lems are pre-
sented for solu-
tion. It is, of
course, open
to question,
whether, u]3on
the site and
within the lim-
its of Mr. A.'s
property, or
with the sum
which Mr. B.
puts at the
landscape gar-
dener's dispo-
sal, or in the
climate and
with the partic-
ular surround-
ings of Mr. C.'s
estate, a formal
or a pictur-
esque treat-
ment will be
best. I hold no
brief for the Ital-
ian formal gar-
den as against
the park and
wild -wood. I
have simply
tried to set
forth the con-
ditions under which it came into being, the artistic principles
which controlled its design, and some of the methods and
devices which produced the results attained. Some of the
errors and defects of these methods I have suggested ; others
are patent to' every observer.
fS
PLAN OF THE VILLA MEDICI GARDENS
Rome
50
European and Japanese Gardens
It is manifest that any attempt at a detailed reproduc-
tion in this country of the exact dispositions of any given ItaHan
villa would be pedantic and irrational, if not absurd, because of
wide divergences of condition, climate, life and environment.
But it is not irrational to study the principles and methods of
this highly developed art, and to adapt to our own con-
ditions such of those principles and methods as lend them-
v*^?^
.^-f -i-'i --j'*'. ''"i'^ fv
ORTI FARNESIANI IFARNESE GARDENSI ROME
I Demolished I — Section and Perspective
selves readily and artistically to those conditions. One or
two cautions are, however, necessary. One should never
forget, for instance, that many elements in the present aspect
of these gardens are adventitious and wholly unforeseen in the
original design, and that such as are due to the action of time
and weather cannot be imitated or reproduced. Trees persist
in growing, so do hedges. Masonry persists in crumbling ;
The Italian Formal Garden
gardeners will undo their predecessors' work, and not a garden
looks in 1900 precisely as it did in 1600. One should also dis-
criminate carefully between the composition and the details of
a design, since one may be excellent and the other very infe-
rior. There is no one recipe or model for the Italian garden ;
differences of site and size and environment have resulted in a
marvelous variety of actual designs, in spite of the uniformity
of their controlling elements, and the problem of any given
AN APPROACH AND ENVIRONMENT FOR THE PALACE'
Rear of Pitti Palace
Boboli Garder
site offers the widest opportunity for variety both of scheme
and of detail, and for the exercise of good taste and discrimi-
nation. No formula can take the place of good taste.
V.
A few words are now in order as to the location of the
most important examples of this art. They are naturally to be
found in greatest number in or near Rome, the seat of the lux-
52
European and Japanese Gardens
ENTRANCE GATE OF THE VILLA ALBANI
urious Papal court and aristocracy of the sixteenth and seven-
teenth centuries. Within the walls, in the northern part of the
city, and adjacent to the Passeggio Pubblico or Pincian gardens,
is the Mlla Medici, overlooking the walls into the Borghese
Villa, which spreads its vast expanse northwards into the sub-
urbs, and commanding westwards a marvelous prospect of the
city and of the glorious dome of St. Peter's across the ri\er a
couple of miles away. The Villa Torlonia is at the northeast
corner of the city, next the Porta Pia. The Ouirinal Hill is
largely occupied by the royal palace and gardens, the latter
very extensive and beautiful, but too flat and uniform to cap-
tivate the beholder as do some of the other gardens. The cen-
tral zone of the city contains no important gardens on the cis-
tiberine side except the Piazza \'ittorio Emanuele and the
Botanical Gardens ; the southern zone boasts the \' ilia Mattel
(now, I believe, the property of an American, the Count Hoff-
mann), a villa full of the restful charm of antiquity, though it
has suffered from modern alterations. The finest Roman villas
53
The Italian Formal Garden
lie either on the hillsides — r. ^i,":, the Villa Pia and the Vatican
Gardens, the V^illa Barberini — now greatly altered, I under-
stand, from its j)ristine state and used as an insane asylum —
close to St. Peter's ; the Villas Lante and Corsini, conti^^uous
to the public parkway of the Passeggiata Margherita ; or out-
side the walls, like the immense Villa Pamfili Doria, outside
the Porta S, Pancrazio ; the Villa Borghese, also of vast extent,
and, like the Pamfili Doria, comprising both picturesque parks
with winding drives and the formal gardening I have been de-
scribing ; and the magnificent Villa Albani, the most formal
and monumental of all the Roman gardens, near the Porta
Salaria.
Blli.,:jB
THE ONE AT TIVOLI
the Villa d'Este
54
European and Japanese Gardens
ONE OF THE REMARKABLE GROUP AT FRASCATI
Plan of the Villa Aldobrandini
The Italian Formal Garden
STRIKING VISTAS AND MONUMENTAL EFFECTS'
The Chateau d'Eau
Villa Aldobrandi
European and Japanese Gardens
WATER WORKS
Ha Torlonia-Conti
UNUSUALLY ELABORATE AND EFFECTIVE'
Two other groups of villas are of easy access from Rome :
those at Tivoli, or rather the one at Tivoli — the Villa d'Este,
and the remarkable group at Frascati, comprising the Aldo-
brandini, Falconieri, Muti, Conti, Mondragone, and others :
57
The Italian Formal Garden
FOREMOST IS THE BOBOLI GARDEN'
The Hill Walk
Boboli Garden, Florence
European and Japanese Gardens
"stretches along the LAKESIDE'
Lake Maggiore
while at Castel Gondolfo is the beautiful Villa Barberini, which
reproduces the arrangements and aspect of the ancient villa of
Domitian. All these villas among the Alban hills differ radi-
cally from those at Rome in tw^o respects. The house is not a
mere " casino," but a permanent residence or palazzo, and the
abrupt slopes of the hillsides give opportunities which are
skilfully availed of, for striking vistas and monumental effects.
Owing to the abundant mountain streams, the water works in
these gardens are unusually elaborate and effective.
Further away from Rome is the hill on which stands
Caprarola, with the imposing pentagonal palace and the beau-
tiful gardens of the Farnesi, built from Yignola's designs ; and
a few miles further yet, the Villa Lante at Bagnaia, near Viterbo,
one of the most perfect and typical of Italian villas.
Florence is naturally the center of another group of villas,
erected either by the Medici or by grandees of the Medi-
cean court. Foremost is the Boboli garden belonging to the
59
The Italian Formal Garden
WALL FOUNTAIN BY CARLO RAINALDI
Villa Borghese
European and Japanese Gardens
Pitti Palace, just without the Porta Romana ; a garden of vast
dimensions, with less of architectural interest than most large
palace or villa gardens, but possessing many features of great
beauty. At Poggio a Cajano is a villa dating from the early
sixteenth century, with a fine old park. A little further from
Florence is the Villa Medicea in Careggi, once the property of
the Dukes of Tuscany, and dating from 1460, but (I believe)
without important gardens. Still further to the northwest is
the Villa Petraia, and west of it the Villa Castello, both now
belonging to the crown, and having very elaborate and beau-
tiful gardens, which are well worthy of a visit. Another Me-
dicean villa near by, the Quarto, with a fine garden, belongs to
the Stroganoff family. One or two other villas are to be seen
on the way to Fiesole. The fine Villa Poggio Imperiale, dat-
ing from 1622, is now a girls' school and not open to the pub-
lic. At Genoa are no villas of the first importance, nor do I
know of examples elsewhere in Italy comparable with those
hitherto mentioned, either in historic or artistic interest, except
the Caserta palace gardens already mentioned.
There are, however, both in Northern Italy, especially
near Genoa and about Lake Como, and in Southern Italy in
the vicinity of Naples, many villas of the second rank, some
of quite modern date, others dating from the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries. These, in their measure, embody the
same principles and possess a like charm with those of which
I have gi\en some account in and near Rome. The difterence
is in degree rather than in kind.
I have discussed only the Italian villa, because it is the
most monumental and characteristic form of the Italian gar-
den. There are thousands of public and private parks and gar-
dens which, owing to different controlling conditions and to the
influence of English and French models, depart radically from
the formal villa-type. Long, narrow stretches along the river-
side or lakeside, small areas surrounding railway stations, open
squares in the cities, demand a difterent handling from that I
have described. In these we meet with both good and bad
examples, but most of them are delightful, if for no other rea-
son, because of the brilliance of the grass and of the flowers
and foliage plants, and because of the lovely atmosphere and
surroundings of the scene. Everywhere is water — in jets or
cascades, and always with architectural accompaniments and
The Italian Formal Garden
decorative sculpture, not always ^^ood but seldom offensive,
and sometimes meritorious, the shores of Lake Como, the
Cascine at Florence, the Chiaja at Naples, are familiar to every
tourist, and serve to call up memories of delight. But these
do not fall within the cate^^ory to which I have preferred to
confine mvself.
HILLSIDE GARDENS NEAR NAPLES
European and Japanese Gardens
DETAIL OF THE STAIRWAY
Gardens of the Villa Corse
(See Frontispiece)
ENGLISH GARDENS
By R. Clipston Sturgis
lEW FROM MONTECUTE HOUSE
ENGLISH GARDENS'
By R. CLIPSTON STURGIS
FELLOW OF THE AMERICAN INJIITUTE OF ARCHITEC'I
AS with English architecture the chief interest centers
about the simpler work, the homely quality of which di-
^ rectly appeals to one, so the smaller and less pretentious
English gardens seem in every way most perfect. There one
finds no question of the rival claims of formal and informal
school, of Italian, French or English styles, but merely a nat-
ural common-sense adaptation of means to an end, a direct
meeting of needs. In the great Italian and French gardens
one feels the presence of a complete and studied scheme, and
also of a conscious effort for effect. As exponents of the art
and science of landscape gardening, French and Italian ex-
amples are distinctly superior to the English ; but for mere,
lovable beauty fitting the needs of true country-lovers, nothing
can approach the English garden.
In many periods of English gardening the influence of
foreign styles and fashions has been felt, and has to a certain
extent modified the planning and planting of grounds; but
except in those places which have attempted grandeur, one
finds no purely scholastic work. The earliest work of which
we have any perfect knowledge is that which was influenced
by the Italian Renaissance. When Inigo Jones and Sir Chris-
topher Wren introduced the balance of classic planning and
the detail of classic work, the gardens develo]3ed on similar
lines. This period gave us the formal terrace, the walled gar-
dens, the bowling-greens, the clipped hedges, and the intelli-
gent use of architectural accessories which mark the majority
of good English gardens. The general character of this work
' This article was a paper jirepared merely for a short address to fellow architects and
makes no pretense to anything hut the most cursory survey of this most delightful and
inexhaustible study. The article was not written with a view to being illustrated, so that
the photographs now published do not bear any very close relation to the text. It is hoped,
however, that they may give some idea, clearer than I can convey in words, of the charm
of the English work.
67
English Gardens
remained practically unchanged tor a couple ot centuries.
With the beginning of this century, when taste in architecture
and art was distinctly declining towards its final depth in the
thirties, there came first, a carelessness for the beauty of the
old gardens, which resulted in neglect ; and then the period
when, under the guidance of Brown, the imitation of nature
and the making of pictures was the aim everywhere. This
resulted not only in the destruction of many fine gardens, but
TERRACE AT MONTECUTE
in a general perversion of taste which it has taken many years
to counteract.
The reaction from Brown's hopeless endeavor to imitate
nature and to avoid everything pertaining to formality was
very quick, and yet it is indicative of the English temper that
it was not a violent swing of the pendulum to the other ex-
treme. Kemp, writing between fifty and sixty, laid down rules,
or rather suggested principles which seem thoroughly sound
and sensible. He urged the necessity for formal treatment in
68
European and Japanese Gardens
ExNGLisH Gardens
DOUBLE-BORDERED PAT^
and about the house, and yet valued the freer and more natural
possibilities which were unaffected by the immediate proximity
of architecture. He deprecated the imitation of nature and
made a strong plea for retainintr " art," by which he meant any-
thing of a formal or studied nature. Simplicity, convenience,
seclusion were amoni^ his chief aims, and it is characteristic of
the Englishman, that, in enumerating the things which require
consideration when planning the grounds, he named economy
first. By this he would include not merely making the plan
on such a scale that the owner could afford to lay it out, but
he would consider also the cost of maintenance, and still fur-
ther, the arrangement of the place so that the maintenance
could be done with economy. This is a matter of great im-
portance, and to its just consideration is due to a large extent
the number and beautv of the English gardens. As a rule
70
European and Japanese Gardens
work is not laid out or undertaken which cannot l^e easily exe-
cuted and maintained without taxing the resources of the
owner.
With the English, gardening is so old an art that the cost
of maintaining can be as readily estimated beforehand as can
the cost of the execution. Tradition, habit, social custom have
all combined to fix the lines on which work shall be conducted,
and thus to make a standard of "form" used in the athletic sense,
for the maintenance of the service of the house, the stable, and
the grounds. If a man can afford but three servants, his house
is arranged on the basis of what three servants can do thor-
oughly well, and he will not have a larger house unless he can
afford to have his service adequate. His stable will be regu-
lated with equal care. He will have only such horses and car-
riages as can be kept in first-rate condition. Applying these
same principles to the garden, collecting and making use of
the cumulative experience of many generations of gardeners,
he lays out his ground with clear foresight as to its mainte-
nance. Nothing is to be slovenly, nothing neglected. The
A GARDEN BACKED WITH TREES
English Gardens
European and Japanese Gardens
SHADED WALK AT FRANKLEIGH
results amply justify this course. The thoroughness of the
Eng-Hsh garden is the very root of its charm. The garden,
whether large or small, shows care in every part, and not only
care, but generally the loving care of the man who is really
fond of his garden as a whole, and of his plants individually.
One cannot go through a garden with the owner or his gar-
dener without feeling that to them the garden is as intimate as
the house.
The whole attitude of mind of the Englishman is the de-
sire to satisfy a need rather than to supply a luxury, and there-
fore this is generally found to be the chief motive in the laying
out of his garden. The great majority of English gardens
have developed in direct response to practical needs, and if one
studies these needs and sees how they have been met, the his-
tory of nine-tenths of the English gardens is given. The
needs of the house are approaches and courts or yards.
The main approach is for the convenience of the family
and their guests ; it is not considered as a portion of the
grounds especially desirable as an outlook. The chief living
rooms are where aspect and outlook are most favorable ;
so that the entrance hall is naturally given the less desirable
•Ji
English Gardens
aspect. On this account, if tor no other, the immediate ap-
proach to the house is not so capable as other places of being
made livable. Considerations of utility are therefore paramount.
If it is a carriage entrance, a short drive and a convenient turn
are the things sought. This has resulted in a number of types
of which the most familiar are the simple in-and-out on
different lines, and the straight drive finishing in a circle.
Both these lend themselves readily to a formal treatment,
and trees planted regularly, hedges or walls give an element
of style to the simplest of plans. The kitchen approach is even
more utilitarian ; the chief object being to keep it separate from
the master's approach and screened from view. The most
direct approach is the simplest of turns ; privacy is obtained
by walls, fences, hedges, or, in the case of basement offices, by
sinking the road below the general grade.
The formal planning of the early seventeenth century,
which developed the H and E plans, suggested the partial or
complete enclosing of the two approaches. It reproduced in
more regular form the early forecourt and basecourt. The for-
mer name is still generally in use, the latter is more generally
referred to as kitchen-court. The forecourt became at once an
interesting feature of the plan, but never lost its true status. It
A WALK BEFORE THE HOUSE
74
European and Japanese Gardens
English Gardens
was always the approach and never a place to idle or take
pleasure in. Its beauties are such as can be readily appre-
hended at a g"lance. One finds none of those hidden nooks,
and unsuspected charms, which are incidental to the garden.
A simple piece of greensward, a few trees, possibly such statu-
ary or vases as will tell at a comparative distance and can be
comprehended in a glance, — these are the general features of
forecourts. Sometimes, but rarely, one finds paved forecourts,
but this is unusual, and the English are more apt to reduce
their pavement or gravel to the smallest dimensions rather
than increase it unnecessarily.
The kitchen-court is entirely for the use of the trades-peo-
ple and for the accommodation of the kitchen service. It may
sometimes serve as a drying-yard, though this is generally sep-
arate. It is therefore paved or gravelled throughout to be dry
under foot and to allow the free handling of wagons. It is the
noisy and disagreeable part of the establishment, and it is con-
sidered essential that it should be removed as far as possible
GARDEN CORNER
76
European and Japanese Gardens
BOX-BORDERED BEDS
from the main house and as much shut off as may be. House-
hold service is brought to much greater perfection in England
than in this country, so that distances, which to an American
housekeeper would seem impossible, are deliberately planned
for, that offices and service-yards may be out of sight, smell
and hearing. Generally the kitchen-court is shut off by part
of the house itself, and if this is not possible, it is screened by
high walls. The drying-ground is generally more open and
sunny, and not infrequently clothes are dried on the ground
instead of hung on a line ; so that the drying-ground may be a
pleasant piece of turf, not unsightly even when covered' with
white linen. Thus in meeting the need of approaches to the
house the two courts are developed.
Before taking up in detail the needs which decide the
character of the grounds more removed from the house, it will
be well to point out that the English invariably carry into their
77
English Gardens
A SMALL HOUSE-COURT
78
European and Japanese Gardens
A BROAD WALK TO THE HOUSE
grounds the same desire for privacy and separation which is
noticeable in the house. The careful separation of the kitchen
and offices from the master's quarters has already been re-
marked, and a similar separation is to be found between
other parts of the household and between individual rooms.
The nurseries are apart ; the master's own rooms are apart ;
the guest-rooms are apart ; and finally, except in suites of
rooms used only for entertainment, the individual rooms are
well divided from each other. This same principle underlies the
garden plan. The place is considered as an outdoor house.
The grounds are divided up according to their use, and each
portion has its well-established boundaries.
In a place of even an acre or two the first consideration is
what can be got from the land in the way of actual return, and
the space for a kitchen-garden is almost the first consideration.
The demands of pleasure may march side by side with this
utilitarian requirement, but it is very rare to find a man laying
79
English Gardens
THE MORE FORMAL GARDEN
out liis place with no thought of anything but beauty and pas-
time. One may therefore be justified in considering the
kitchen-garden as the most prominent necessity after the
approaches. This garden must be near the liouse and near
the kitchen and the gardener's house, and yet not too evident.
It is never, however, treated as an unsightly part of the estab-
lishment ; and, indeed, there are manv kitchen-gardens which
80
European and Japanese Gardens
yMHA f 1
mS^^^B^^
I^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^H^^
^^
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-:.mJ^..:.:-..---..
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. ^P« ■ w^S^?^
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THE GARDEN WALK
are quite delightful spots in which to ramble. A garden at
Wells has dwarf espalier apples bordering its path, beautiful
fruit trees on its fine old walls, standard roses marking the
lines of some of its paths, and the flowers and fruit are helped,
rather than hurt, by the peas and beans, the splendid blue-
green of the cabbage tribe, and the rich brown of the turned-
over soil. As the kitchen-garden is to be an apartment by
itself, as it were, it is bounded, and at the same time pro-
tected, by walls. Large gardens would be subdivided, and one
might find separate gardens for herbs, for small fruits, for roots
and for the more quickly growing crops, such as beans and
peas. The necessary water is made use of as an interesting
feature. Water which has lain in the sun is better than cold
well water, or water just from the town mains, so one generally
finds a good-sized basin making an interesting pool in the gar-
den. A proper place for tools creates a garden-house — fre-
quently quite a delightful feature — and the greenhouse, hot-
English Gardens
European and Japanese Gardens
bed cold-frames, bins for leaves, and all such accessories of
garden-work are made to lend interest to the kitchen-garden
and give it the air of order which is characteristic of all English
work. The desire to make the most of every scrap of ground
induces the utmost care in getting all that is possible out of
smallest compass. The walls, as well as the ground, must yield
their increase, and all must be in compact form. This has pro-
A MODERN HOUSE AND GARDEN
duced the many varieties of dwarf trees which add interest to
the garden, and has led to the careful rotation of crops, and
the following of crops in the same season, all of which increase
the appearance of care and thoroughness.
Flowers are so interwoven with kitchen-garden, part of
which is generally occupied by the varieties which are more
useful for cutting than for their beauty out of doors, as to
lead one to the consideration of the flower-garden as the next
need to be satisfied. The flowers one might divide under three
83
English Garden;
GRASS TERRACES AND GARDEN-HOUSE
heads : roses, perennials, annuals. This is of course a very primi-
tive division, but those three classes are represented in e\'ery
English garden ; and the three, as befits their dift'erent charac-
teristics, are generally separated, so that one has the rose-gar-
den, the perennial beds or borders, and the parterre of annuals,
Roses are the special pride of the English gardener, and with
climbers, standards, and low-budded roses, and all the \arieties
of briars, almost anything can be done with the rose-garden.
Like other parts of the place it is enclosed with walls or a hedge.
The perennials, being like the roses permanent occupiers of
the ground, are placed in deep rich beds ; and for convenience
both of tending and picking, are frequently in long, narrow
borders against the walls. This gives the tall growing plants
the support and protection of the wall, and leaves room for the
various smaller varieties in the edge. Such a long border, with
perhaps a hedged walk or bowling-green running the length
of it, is a familiar and most charming feature. The annuals
European and Japanese Garde
NS
English Gardens
European and Japanese Gardens
IE WALL OF A MODERN GARDEN
are in small beds by themselves, the beds often bordered with
dwarf box, — so that the regular outline of the beds may be
pleasing even when the beds themsehes are empty. To reach
the gardens and to enjoy them when in their midst, one finds
pleasant walks, some shady, — perhaps completely embowered,
— others sunny, for use on cold days. There are also seats and
garden-houses.
In laying all this out, there is generally a double aim ;
first to give, by occasional long vistas, a sense of size ; and sec-
ond, by screened enclosures and half-concealed exits, a sense
of privacy and a stimulus to the imagination for what lies be-
yond. In the most interesting gardens the element of the un-
expected is always present, and the fact that it cannot be a sur-
prise to the owner does not really detract from its value ; to
every visitor it is a source of delight, new pleasures still unfold-
ing until the last surprise of the round is in finding oneself
back again at the starting-place.
Architectural laws demand a certain amount of le\el space
immediately about the house, and various sports require level
87
English Gardens
i^round further afield. The bowhng-green, crociuet-ground,
and lawn-tennis courts have formed at one time or another
necessary parts in the layout of even a small place. These
fiat pieces of the splendid turf which is so common in England
are among^ the most beautiful features of the English garden.
Here again the love for retirement suggests enclosing walls or
hedges, so that the court or the green is really a great out-of-
doors room, with garden seats and benches about, or perhaps
in the more stately ones, busts on plinths in Italian fashion set
against the somber green of the yew hedge. Again one sees
that this feature is produced in direct response to a need.
Le\'el ground cannot always be obtained naturally, and the
need of it has developed the terraces which abound in the hilly
districts. These may be the mere formal treatment of the plat-
form on which the house securely rests ; or they may form the
various divisions of the hillside garden ; or again, surrounding
the sunken garden, they may give the pleasant walk and that
most delightful of all views which one gets of a small garden,
A LEVEL STRETCH
88
European and Japanese Gardens
the view looking down. All the features we have considered
may be worked out on a groundwork of terraces, and their
possibilities as well as their charms, are endless. Sedding
well said that howe\'er much we were refined and cultivated
there was always an underlying sa\'agery which at times
demanded satisfaction. One must tire of the sure mark of
man's hand, and long for nature unrestrained : the wide sea-
board and the rude forest. So one finds in almost every Eng-
lish place of any size some wilderness, some copse, or combe,
which shall be left free and wild, or at the least a reminder of
nature quite free. But the transition from the cultivated aspect
of nature to its wilder form must be gradual ; one does not
want to open the garden-gate in the wall and be in the forest.
Between the two, one finds the pasture-lands, rolling, sheep-
cropped fields, bordered not with the masonry wall or the
clipped hedge, but with the wild hedgerow% thick with thorn
and holly and punctuated with the upstanding elms. From the
pastures to the copse and the woodland the transition is easy.
English Gardens
A WELL-LAID LAWN
A GARDEN PATH
90
European and Japanese Gardens
THE OBLONG POOL
Thus the En^Hsh garden has its forecourt and basecourt,
its gardens for fruit, vegetables and flowers, its places for sport
and recreation ; and to guard and protect all these from search-
ing winds and prying eyes, are the boundaries, the divisions,
the walls and the hedges. The walls, especially those near the
house, are always in close touch with the house itself. They
are built of stone if the house be of stone, and of brick if the
house be a brick one, and in their ornament, balustrades, gate-
ways, posts, copings and finials, they echo the character of the
house. As one goes further from the house the walls are less
architectural and more purely utilitarian. The boundary wall
of the place, or the north or east wall of the garden may be ten
or twelve feet high, for these are to serve as a real protection ;
others may be but two or three feet high, mere boundaries to
mark a line. The hedge is perhaps the commonest bound of
all, and this varies from the rough pasture hedgerow to the
clipped yew, or holly, or box. The ornamental clipping of
91
English Gardens
hedges and indixidual trees, or what is known as topiary-work,
was an importation from Holland, and at one time was very
popular. There are many examples of this work in the older
j^ardens, but to-day clipped work is rather more sober, and, on
the whole, more in keepin^t^ with the common-sense beauty of
the English garden.
Shrubs are rarely seen as individual show-plants, but are
generally massed and placed with some special end in view
AN OUTLOOK FROM THE HOUSE
beyond and apart from their mere beauty. They will serxe to
screen the offices or the kitchen-yard, or to make a windbreak
for more delicate things growing on the borders of the lawn.
Trees also are used very cautiously as individual specimens.
Occasionally a great plane tree or an ilex stands in lonely gran-
deur at the edge of the lawn ; but, as a rule, the trees are
planted in groups to serve definite purposes, — sometimes to
shut out an undesirable view, sometimes to form a vista
towards a pleasant scene. Again, a group of elms at the end
92
European and Japanese Gardens
of a place may simply serve as a background, a j^reat drop-
scene, which finishes the \'iew and lea\es one in doubt as to
how much more there may be beyond. Many a small place of
two or three acres gives an impression at once of seclusion and
of size, because the great trees pre\'ent one's seeing what lies
beyond. The larger places will, of course, have their copse
and woodland ; but even here the marks of axe, mattock and
saw show that thoroughness and care, and that eye to profit
which per\'ade everything ; for dead wood is always cleared
out, the spindling trees are felled, the brushwood is cut and tied
in fagots. Everywhere there are signs of an old industry, a
well-worked country, where e\erything must be turned to
account. When one wanders through English gardens and
feels all their delight, one cannot but be con\inced that com-
mon-sense and thrift are the roots on which the beauty has
grown and thrived.
A HEDGE GATEWAY
93
FRENCH GARDENING AND ITS MASTER
5v John Galen Howard
O £
? E
FRENCH GARDENING AND ITS MASTER
By JOHN GALEN HOWARD
FELLOW OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF A RCH IIECIS
SUCH a subject as that upon which I have been asked
to say a few words is of far too \ast a scope to be
adequately treated within the Hmits of a short paper.
I have therefore thought it wise to single out one great epoch
and to con-
illustrate ;
fine my re-
a n d e \' e r
marks and
since that
my illustra-
'^BEA^«^^IIBiBI
time, all work
tions mainly
':&BBHpHh^ ''- ^^^^^^Ri
of French-
tothatperiod.
ImP'^W^^^mIHH
1 men in land-
This can the
^^^^BS^^ -'^'L. -^ *' "^^jIBj^BS^^^H^B'S
scape design
more justly
and the more
I^^IHR^^^--,
has been
done with
readily be
that age of
done in
■ ■ mL^ ■ f,
achievement
speaking of
.^mh'-^\ ^ .
very vividly
French gar-
dens, inas-
m-^'s^^ ^Ul^
in the eye of
the artist,
much as all
whether he
the early his-
"^—^-
worked from
tory of hor-
■ 1
it as an ac-
ticulture i n
cepted proto-
France leads
... t -^^pK|^^.-|y '^^ i^afwiify "•
type, or fiung
up to the per-
A LEAD VASE
himself into
iod I propose
Basin of Neptune, Versailles
eager oppo-
especially to
sition to the
principles which governed it and made its greatness.
The entire history of French gardening is dominated in a
degree very exceptional in any art or people by a single per-
sonality— that, namely, of Le Notre. I do not mean to say,
97
French Gardening and Its Master
of course, that there was no important gardening in France
before or after his day, or by other men during the period of
his own activity. The gentle art was indeed practiced with
keenest deHght, and with signal success, by countless genera-
tions of Frenchmen before the man I have named began his
career ; and to so great a degree is this true, that the French
may fairly be called a nation of garden builders. There has
always, from the
*%
V e r }' earliest
times, been, in the
French character,
a special fondness
and aptitude for
the art of horticul-
ture ; and from
the earliest times
there have been
striking examples
of gardens whose
design has been
developed in obe-
dience to the laws
not merely of an
art, — that is to
say, a science, —
but of a fine art,
strictly so-called.
No medieval
stronghold or re-
ligious establish-
ment was com-
plete without its
space (however
small) set apart
for the special purpose of a garden — a pleasure-ground
where flowers and fruit-trees were disposed in such forms
and in such combijiations as to give not only a practical
result as a matter of agriculture, but a grateful effect from
the point of view of pure beauty. The French seem always
to have felt an instinctive delight in the simple pleasures
of the o])en air: in flowers and trees, and vistas, and run-
PLAN OF THE GARDENS OF VERSAILLES
98
European and Japanese Garde
NS
French Gardening and Its Master
BASIN OF LATONE AND THE PALACE
VERSAILLES
ning waters, — which led them to bring all these things into
their own homes, to add them as so many intimate features of
the greater house. But all this instinctive delight in the gar-
den, all this acquired skill in garden-making, led on and up to
THE BASIN OF APOLLO
European and Japanese Gardens
the climax of accomplishment under the famous gardener of
the Grand Monarque, who in his single practice summed up
all that was best in what preceded him.
It is easy to see the influence that Italy had upon the early
development of agronomy in France, just as it is easy to trace
the growth of the other arts from Italian sources. Italian en-
lightenment preceded the French ; and in the same wav that,
W0
\^mm^
jlK^^:^
THE BASIN OF CERES
VERSAILLES
in the early centuries of the Christian Era, Gaul drew her in-
spiration from Rome, so later through the ages, France, while
always coloring with her own character what she appropriated
from her instructress, sat at the feet of Italy. This is true in a
measure of all the arts, — but most distinctly so in gardening.
It would even be difficult in many instances to distinguish the
design of a French garden of the middle ages from an Italian
example of a similar period. And this for a twofold reason : —
French Gardening and Its Master
TO'.-
GROVE OF THE COLONNADE
first, the French civiHzation followed in the wake of the Italian,
and second, the art of gardening was at that time little devel-
oped, compared with what it afterward became, and was, in
4r
4^
THE BASIN OF THE DRAGON
VERSAILLES
European and Japanese Gardens
THE ORANGERY
VERSAILLES
effect, the least advanced of all the arts. Consequently the
characteristics of the various peoples practicing it were little
marked, for the early arts of all peoples much resemble one
another ; it is only at the higher, and especially the highest
points of their respective developments, that the finer and more
characteristic elements of a race are brought out in its art
accomplishment.
Du Cerceau, in commenting upon the undoubted influence
which the taste of the Italians exercised over their northern
neighbors, outlines the type which was common in both France
and Italy. "Everywhere," he says," were great divisions with
avenues of high trees, fences of hazel, and hedges of hawthorne.
Long, trellised arbors, opening out at intervals into shady sum-
mer-houses, ideally arranged for scenes of gallantry, sur-
rounded the open central space, or divided it into several
individual gardens. Marble basins with spouting water-jets
and cascades, gliding from artificial rocks, made up the prin-
103
French Gardening and Its Master
European and Japanese Gardens
cipal remaining- features of the rather chiUing- and over-sym-
metrical decoration of the ItaHan gardens, in which everything
seemed obedient to a singfle demand, — coolness, shade,
mystery."
The transition from the dark ag"es to the Renaissance was
marked in gardening- more by a change of scale than by a
change in kind, or point of view. Whereas the old-time castle
THE CROSS OF FRANCHARD
FOREST OF FONTAINEBLEAU
garden, or cloister garth, had been a small and confined
area, — what could without too much sacrifice of security and
increase of protective garrison be aft'orded within the moat, —
the fifteenth century brought in larger ideas, and not only the
desire, but the possibility of using wider spaces. Gardens
expanded, accordingly, from cramped, walled spaces, strictly
within the precincts, to wide free fields stretching far out over
the plain, and even into the forests, — themselves more and
los
French Gardening and Its Master
GORGE OF THE MEDLARS
FOREST OF FONTAINEBLEAU
European and Japanese Gardens
more frequently being- brought into the great scheme by means
of long straight avenues cut across through the thickest woods
and gi\'ing centers of interest from which again new lines of
view were opened out, and out, till wide regions, many miles
in extent and of the most diversified character, were held in
PLAN OF THE PALACE AND GARDENS OF FONTAINEBLEAU
leash, as it were, — their wildness preserved as their most pre-
cious quality, yet netted and meshed across by lanes, round
points, paths and avenues, which give them a fascinating sem-
blance of complete submission to civilizing influences. Who
has traversed the marvelous forest of Fontainebleau, for exam-
ple, but with a new sense of the wildness, the strangeness, the
indomitable spirit of nature ? Vet all that wild territory is but
a vast garden, its design composed and adjusted with the last
degree of skill, and cultivated with a care as extreme in its
large way as that with which, in their more intimate fashion,
the Luxembourg gardens, for instance, are dressed and cod-
dled.
The principal professional garden-makers of the Renais-
sance were the three Mollets, Bernard Palissy, and Olivier de
Serres, the last being rather a practical man than a designer.
The Mollets seem to have been a sort of dynasty in the art, the
first of the name having created for the Due d'Aumale the
famous gardens about the Chateau d'Anet, of which practically
nothing is left. The castle itself has been razed, with the
exception of some of the loveliest portions, which were removed
to the court of the School of Fine Arts in Paris. Claude Mol-
107
French Gardening and Its Master
let, the son of the first, is considered as the immediate prede-
cessor of Le Notre himseU" ; to him is ascribed the invention
of fioral embroideries. He is largely responsible for the gar-
den schemes at Fontainebleau, and at St. Germain-en-Laye
(1595). His work in the Gardens of the Tuileries was, how-
ever, totally destroyed by freezing. Andre Mollet, the third
of the family and son of Claude, became gardener to Louis
XIII. He was afterward called by James I to England, where
his work had a determining influence on the development of
gardening in the United Kingdom.
Bernard Palissy, the same who is better known for his
work in porcelain, is remembered in gardening annals for a
certain fabulous pleasure-ground which was carried out, accord-
ing to his unbridled imagination, for Catherine de Medici at
Chenonceaux, where he completely abandoned himself to his
fancy for rockeries, basins, frogs, turtles, snakes, shell-work,
etc. A long ''dialogue" of his on this subject, expatiating on
the beauties of the work, is quoted by Mangin in his interest-
ing book.
THE PALACE FROM THE PARK
FONTAINEBLEAU
108
European and Japanese Gardens
French Gardening and Its Master
European and Japanese Gardens
BASIN OF THE CASCADE
FONTAINEBLEAU
But it was not the professional i^^ardeners alone who were
successful in the art. Many of the finest gardens were laid out
by architects who designed the grounds to harmonize with their
buildings. The finest garden of that time which has been pre-
served for us in anything like its original beauty, in fact the
only remaining Renaissance garden in Paris, is the garden of
the Luxembourg, which was laid out, between 1615 and 1620,
for Marie de Medici by Jacques Debrosse, the architect of the
palace of the same name. Originally these grounds were of
great extent, but they have been repeatedly curtailed and en-
croached upon, only the central portions immediately about
the palace retaining their original character. There are cer-
tainly few spots in the world which possess a more exquisite,
a more satisfying charm.
But all of these men, successful as they were, yield the palm
to Le Notre, who occupies much the same place in the art of
gardening as Shakespeare fills in poetry ; a place recognized
not bv his own race alone, but by the world. Le Notre, indeed,
French Gardening and Its Master
is a name known to all men, — and of how many other names
in his art can that be said ? How many of the names I have
mentioned are kno\vn, except Palissy, whose work in other
lines is his chief claim to renown, beyond the circles of those
who have made a special study of the history of horticulture ?
In other arts one can run through a dozen names with ease,
but in gardening there is one man, and one only, of such com-
manding genius that his name is a household word and his
chief work a recognized classic. Le Notre resembled Shakes-
peare in another point, namely, that he was content to take
THE CHATEAU FROM THE LAKE
CHANTILLY
the material ready at hand and perfect it, rather than run
to the ends of the earth for new motives on which to build,
new forms in w^iich to cast his work. The poise, the insight,
the imagination of genius of the first order was his ; but he
saw his field to be large enough in perfecting and in inter-
preting what his predecessors had prepared for him. The
quintessence of genius and of wisdom, this, — not to throw away
as nothing worth the skill of preceding ages and his own ; but to
seize it, treasure it, transmute it in the alembic of his own per-
sonality,— put it forth at last pure gleaming metal of creative
power. Of such stuff was the originality of Shakespeare in
European and Japanese Garde
NS
French Gardening and Its Master
European and Japanese Garden;
PLAN OF THE PARK OF MARL\
poetry, and of Le Notre in gardening^. Of what immense inter-
est it would be to show how this principle holds through the
history of all the arts, — that he is greatest who can take what
other men have done and better it, perfect it, — not he who pre-
sumptuously shatters traditions, essaying, as it were, what no
one has ever succeeded in doing, anew and alone to construct
an art out of his own inner consciousness.
Andre Le Notre was born at Paris in 1613. He was the
son of the King's snn'ntendant, as his title was : what
would correspond, I suj)pose, in our time and tongue, to
Director of Works, — head gardener and outside man. The
father was anxious to have his son become a painter, though in
those days the natural course of events was for a man's son to
follow in his father's footsteps. We are forced to draw the
conclusion that the surintciidaiit had found his calling none
too much like the beds of roses his business was to cultivate,
since he went so far out of his way to induce his son not to
115
French Gardening and Its Master
European and Japanese Gardens
follow it. However that may be, the son showed early a fondness
for things beautiful, was always, from his earliest childhood,
about the gardens of the King, with his father, and showed an
aptitude for drawing as well as cultivating. At his father's
instance he studied painting under Simon Vouet, in whose
studio he met, among others, Le Sueur, Mignard and Lebrun ;
but his heart turned ever to the paternal calling, and his incli-
nation was finally so strong as not to be denied. He took up
the profession of gardening in the highest sense, — what we
call landscape architecture. It is certain that his training in a
studio where he came into personal relations with the leading
painters, sculptors and architects of his time, had a definite
and very powerful influence over the young man's development,
giving him a wider range and a truer artistic sense than even
his genius could have commanded otherwise. The practical
knowledge, which was his as a direct heritage from his father,
become virtually his second nature, was thus linked with the
broadest artistic education of his time. Beside these advant-
ages he possessed an intellect of great clearness and power,
A PROMENADE IN THE TUILERIES
French Gardening and Its Master
European and Japanese Gardens
and a personal character at once of winninj^'- charm and of
masterly strength. An individuality so marked as his would
have achieved greatness in almost any time or land ; small
wonder, then, that in a period so sympathetic with his nature as
was the age of Louis XIV in France, — an age of luxury, limit-
less expenditure, devotion to art, to pomp and to ceremony,
an age which played upon his own nature and formed it, and
in turn was played upon and formed by it, — we find him
accomplishing a work very exceptional in its extent and its
THE TUILERIES AND THE LOUVRE
variety. No doubt ne had countless assistants in his multifa-
rious tasks, but his spirit informs and distinguishes all the end-
less list of works which are counted among his masterpieces ;
and, in addition, the indications of his genius served to remodel,
and practically reconstruct, many of the gardens of an earlier
day, already famous, but transformed and made to blossom
anew under the suggestions of his enlightening imagination.
He stands alone for his art, through the century, which was
honored by his birth, and the succeeding one. He summed up
all that was best worth while in the garden practice of his own
time and that preceding it, and welded it into a consistent
whole, through sheer force of creative power. He invented,
indeed, no new kind, but he ennobled and synthesized the
French Gardening and Its Master
THE MEDICI FOUNTAIN
GARDENS OF THE LUXEMBOURG
European and Japanese Gardens
A FOUNTAIN
GARDENS OF THE LUXEMBOURC
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.
French Gardening and Its Master
European and Japanese Gardens
That it was well-nijvjfh insurmountable we know. But the
instinct of Le Notre for the pecuHar beauty of g^ardens, united
with a clear imagination, enabled him to free himself, to a
remarkable decree always, and in some instances absolutely,
from the cruel hamperinof of conventional materials of study ;
and at Versailles, probably his finest work, certainly the finest
that has been preserved to our day, his spirit seems to have
risen entirely superior to ordinary limitations, and has pro-
PLAN OF THE GARDENS OF THE LUXEMBOURG
duced a work as perfect in its complex simplicity, and in every
detail of its eftect as adequate and as just, as it is impressive.
Le Notre possessed in preeminent degree what his race
calls "the sense of the beautiful in space"; and in like degree
he had, to quote one of his biographers, " the sense of elegance
in majesty and regularity." He was especially fortunate in
his patron. Louis XIV was an ideal client for a designer like
le Notre. While he seems not to have been the actual discov-
erer of his gardener's talent, he at any rate gave him his
noblest opportunities, took him literally into his heart, and
heaped benefits and honors upon him. I fancy, from the
123
French Gardening and Its Master
PLAN OF THE GARDENS AND PARK
accounts of his dealings with his artists of various ivinds, that
the Grand Monarque was far from being what an architect
would call an easy client. He had ideas of his own, thought
he knew it all better than the cleverest of others, made changes
from beginning to end during the progress of the work ; and
indulged, without a thought of the other man, in all those
annoyances which, if they were not at times so difficult to
bear with, we should call petty. But with all that, he recog-
nized very substantially, in honors, in pecuniary grants, and,
best of all, in enlarged opportunities for work, his indebted-
ness to those who worked for him. Le Notre was a consum-
mate courtier, never for a moment presuming to a semblance
of social equality with the great nobles for whom he worked ;
but at the same time giving rein, in their presence, to the
charming child-like good nature and enthusiasm which was so
important a factor in his success. Those who employed him
loved him, and he made his way, and got his way, quite as
much, probably, by the exercise of his personal charm as by
bringing into play the more masterful powers of his intellect.
European and Japanese Gardens
French Gardening and Its Master
In the midst of pompous formality he was a playful child, and
the great world liked the contrast. At one time in his career
he visited Italy, wishing to see what had been done there in
his art. While in Rome he was summoned to the presence
of the Pope, Innocent XI. The great prelate entered into
familiar conversation with the gardener, complimented him
upon his wonderful successes, and expressed regret that he
had never had the opportunity of seeing his work. Le Notre
entered into the subject with enthusiasm, abandoned all for-
mality, assured the Pope that he must visit France, and see his
Versailles. At this. Innocent protested as being too old to
undertake such a journey. " But your holiness is still vigor-
ous," cried Le Notre, " and I wager will bury the entire college
of cardinals ! " With that he threw his arms about the Pope's
neck and kissed him effusively, — an unheard-of liberty, which
seems to have delighted the head of the churh. One is left to
THE GRAND CASCADE
126
European and Japanese Gardens
RUINS OF THE PALACE
imagine the charm of ingenuousness with which such antics
must have been accompanied for them to have been received
as they were. When word of this e\ent reached the court at
Versailles, high wagers were laid that the tale was untrue be-
cause incredible. But Louis XIV, when he heard the account,
burst into laughter, asserting he knew it was true, " Because "
said he, " he kisses even me, when he has been long without
seeing me ! "
M. Andre maintains that the great Frenchman found
nothing in Italy worthy of his attention, and returned without
having learned anything, — a claim which we need not take too
seriously. He busied himself, while there, by creating two of
the finest gardens in the vicinity of Rome, those of the Villa
Pamfili and the Villa Ludovisi. He was ennobled in 1665, and
died in 1 700. Coysevox, the sculptor of many of the exquisite
details of the great gardener's work, executed his bust, which
is now in the Louvre.
A list of Le Notre's works would be too long for me to give
here ; but I must mention, in addition to his masterpiece at
Versailles, his gardens at Marly, now nearly obliterated, but
which must have been only less fine than Versailles, though in
127
French Gardening and Its Master
an essentially different manner. The gardens of the Tuileries
also are in large part his, though the scheme as a whole is
hardly distinguishable, owing to serious changes in portions.
Of course his tour-de-force for Fouque at Vaux-le-Vicomte, one
of his earliest great efforts, is famous for the jealousy it roused
in the king's breast when he saw so magnificent a work exe-
cuted for his financier. Le Notre soon after began the mar-
velous series of works for his royal master Louis XIV himself.
Other of his important designs were at Sceaux, Meudon, Chan-
tilly, and St. Cloud.
In closing this hasty sketch, I can hardly do better than
to quote, in translating, from that fascinating work, Lcs Jardins,
by M. Mangin, to which I am largely indebted for the facts I
have presented. M. Mangin says, in speaking of Le Notre : —
'' What he accomplished was to naturalize in France the classic
style, that of the century of Augustus and of the Renaissance.
Far from breaking with tradition, Le Notre was on the contrary
its most eminent representative in modern times, and his supe-
riority over his immediate forerunners comes from the fact that
although the faithful disciple of the old masters, he knew how
to draw inspiration from their lessons without copying their
works."
THE TERRACE AT ST. GERMAIN
128
JAPANESE LANDSCAPE GARDENING
By K. Honda
JAPANESE LANDSCAPE GARDENING
(Notes to the Lantern Slides)
By K. HONDA
MEMBER OF 1 HE JAPANESE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY
IN Japan we have many types of garden construction
which have been described by different authors. In this
paper we confine ourselves to the most important and
interesting- designs chosen from the best sources.
The south is always considered the most suitable ex-
posure for dwelling's among Japanese, as the summer breeze
generally prevails from this direction. This idea is so well ob-
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^1^^'
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MANGWANJI GARDEN
131
Japanese Landscape Gardening
PLATE I HILL GARDEN-FINISHED STYLE
served in garden construction that everyone adheres to the
principle.
In general, the composition of gardens may be treated
under two divisions : Flat {liiranhua) and Hill Gardens
[tsiikiyaina-niwa], both of which may be again subdivided into
three different forms called, respectively, "Finished," "Inter-
mediary," and " Rough."
HILL GARDEN — FIXLSHKI) STVLP:.
Plate I represents an ordinary Hill Garden of the finished
style, and may be taken as the best form suitable to spacious
land, located in front of the principal building. The positions
of the principal hills, stones, trees, cascades, bridges, and isles
are all arranged, as shown upon the plate.
HILLS.
Hill I, which forms the central feature, represents a moun-
tain of considerable size, and should have broad sweeping sides.
Hill 2, always taken in connection with No. i, is to be placed
close by the latter, but is somewhat lower and consequently is
132
European and fAPANESE Gardens
Japanese Landscape Gardening
of secondary importance. Hill 3, placed on the opposite side
of No. I, occupies a part of the foreground. It is intended to
represent a lower hill or spur divided from the principal moun-
tain by a lowland. The lowland is supposed to be occupied by
a hamlet, road, or stream. It must be planted with a few trees
or shrubs of thick foliage, so as to give an idea of a sheltered
and inhabited dale. Hill 4 is a small eminence, generally dis-
■■■
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THE MIKADO'S GARDEN
posed in the near foreground, which forms a part of the hill-
side. Hill 5 is placed in the farther end of the garden, in such
manner that one can have a view of it between Hills i and 2.
As this hill is intended to look like a distant peak, it must be
executed so as to have a precipitous appearance, while its bot-
tom must be covered perfectly to gi\'e only a suggestion of
foreground. The illustration shows ten important types of
rock-stones, of which the following is an explanation :
134
EuRop \N AND Japanese Gardens
/
Japanese Landscape Gar ening
European and Japanese Gardens
STONES.
No. I, termed "Guardian Stone," is a high one and is
placed in an upright position. It is situated in the center of the
garden, and is called the dedication stone. No. 2, forming
a balance with No. i, is placed on the opposite side of
the cascade. No. 3, large and fiat, is termed " Worshipping
Stone." It is placed generally in the foreground, or, some-
times, on the center of an island, or even on an open space,
accessible by stepping-stones. In the illustration it is repre-
sented as located on an island. The conil)inati()n of No. 1
and No. 3 can never be omitted from a garden. No. 4, termed
" Perfect-View Stone," is placed in the " near foreground." It
is equally good to have it on a side of the garden, if by the latter
position it maintains a due prominence. Often two or more flat
stones are used. No. 5, situated on the other side of the gar-
den, and just in front of No. 4, should be so placed as to be in
STONE LANTERNS
137
Japanese Landscape Gardening
SORINTO, NIKKO
European and Japanese Gardens
harmony with a flat one, termed " Water-Tray Stone." Both
are situated on the shore of a lake, and are carefully arrang-ed
in connection with the hi^h-water level. No. 6, called " Moon-
Shadow Stone," occupies an important position in the distance
being placed in the valley between two principal hills, just in
front of the peak (Hill No. 5). No. 7, called " Cave Stone," is
upright and is very similar in use to the " Guardian Stone,"
for which it is often substituted. No. 8 generally goes by the
name of " Seat-of-Honour Stone." It is broad and flat, and
LANTERN AND WATER-BASIN
FUKAGAWA GARDEN
placed in a horizontal position, next to the "Worshipping Stone,"
it is an important feature. It answers to a small vertical of second-
ary importance. No. 9, called "Pedestal," or "Snail Stone,"
occupies the first rank among the stepping-stones, and is ar-
ranged in the foreground. It is somewhat higher than the
others. No. 10, called " Idle Stone," consists of two broad,
low, and somewhat round stones, should be placed in the shade
along the water. Others shown in the plate are of minor im-
portance, and their special names are not given ; they are
merely arranged to produce harmony in the composition.
Japanese Landscape Gardening
TREES.
Before giving a full account of the vegetation in Japanese
gardens one must mention that a particularly noteworthy tree is
always found among several others of less importance. No. i,
termed "Principal Tree" [S/iojin-boku), is a pine or an oak
well grown, accompanied by other trees with thick foliage.
No. 2, called "Perfection Tree" {Keiyo-hoku), is only second
in importance to No. i. Its trunk, branches, and foliage are
objects (pf particular interest. No. 3, called " Tree of Solitude "
[Sckizoi-boku), may be either single or grouped, but must
always have thick foliage. It is intended to give shade and to
impart a very secluded aspect to the garden. No. 4, called
"Cascade Circuit" [takigakoi], consists of a number of low
trees or even bushes. They are planted around the waterfall in
such a manner as to shelter the cascade from too much bold
exposure to the eyes. No. 5, having the name of "Setting
Sun" [Sekiyo-boku), is planted in the background of the garden.
The tree is planted to turn westward, and is intended to screen
the garden from the rays of the setting sun. The tree best
adapted for the purpose is generally maple, or, if this cannot
be obtained, at least another red foliage tree should be pro-
cured that would produce a striking effect under the evening
sunshine. They are sometimes replaced by the cherry and
plum tree. No. 6 is called the "Perspective Pine" {Mikosi-
matsii) ; it is designed to give an effect of extended distance
and naturally is placed behind a garden or in a place partly
concealed. No. 7 goes by the name of the " Outstretching
Pine" [Nagashi'-ina/sH), suggesting branches overhanging a
stream or a lake. This is generally a single evergreen tree
in the foreground wdth branches outstretching over a stream.
Other accessories are : A, a well, with a weeping willow ;
B, a lantern, just close to the tree No. 2 — the light from the
lantern is thrown over the water ; C, the back-gate of the gar-
den ; D, a bridge leading from the mainland to the lake islet ;
E, small passway on a plank ; F, an arched stone bridge with
moulded stone parapet ; G, a w^ater basin with a sink and a
pool ; H, a stone lantern behind the w^ater-basin. The step-
ping-stones in the foreground guide the steps of a stroller
from the garden to the veranda, while the entire ground is
covered with well-prepared earth.
140
European and Japanese Gardens
ILL GARDEN— INTERMEDIARY STYLE
ILL GARDEN ROUGH STYLE
HILL GARDEN — IXTERMP:DLARV STYLE.
Plate II represents a Hill garden of the intermediary or
semi-elaborated style. Here only four hills are given, corre-
sponding to Hills Nos. I, 2, 3, 5, produced on the Plate I. In
141
Japanese Landscape Gardening
this garden the examples of "distant mountains," "near
mountain" and " mountain spur" are only suggested by the
general outline.
FLAT GARDEN— FINISHED STYLE
STONES.
Stones I, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. 7, 8 and 9 are similar in arrangement
to those shown in Plate I. It must be observed that the stone
No. 5 has been submerged into the water, while in Plate I it is
shown quite distinctly. Other stones, too, have been replaced by
large ones. As a rule, the heavier and larger the stones used,
the smaller they are in number. Stone 10, placed by the
wooden bridge, is termed "Edge Stone." Stone 11, called
"Screen Stone," forms another type of perfection in the back-
ground. No. 12, placed vertically, and No. 13, placed hori-
zontally, form the bottom of a cascade, and together with other
stones form a rockery.
The "Principal Tree," No. i, is a single pine tree with a
bush placed beneath. No. 2, "Tree of the Setting Sun," is
planted at the extreme west. No. 3, "Tree of Solitude," some-
European and Japanese Gardens
Japanese Landscape Gardening
BRACKET BRIDGE
FUKAGAWA GARDEN
what larger, fronts to the east. No. 4, " Cascade Screening
Tree," is an outstretching pine, which partly shelters the water-
fall. "Perfection Tree," "Perspective Pine," and "Stretching
Pine," are not placed in this form of garden. The lake is smaller
than the waterfall ; here it is well represented with an islet
and a bridge over it. " The Snow-View Lantern," as shown in
Plate I, is placed in the background and in close connection
with the "Western Tree" and the "Distance Stone" (No.
1 1 ). The other stone-lantern in the center is much larger in
size, and plays an important role in the whole composition.
The arbor, water-basin and other features profusely used in
the elaborate style are wanting in many instances in this
style of garden. For the enclosure a bamboo fence only
is used.
HILL garden — ROUGH STYLP:.
Plate III gives a model of a rough hill garden, where only
the principal points of interest are given. Here two small
mounds answer for hills, and give an idea of slight elevation,
European and Japanese Gardens
but the representation of the " Distant" and " Near Hills" are
always kept in the scheme. A few stones disposed tastefully
suffice to g"ive a faint resemblance to the original elaborate fin-
ished style. Stone i, the "Guardian Stone," marks one of the
principal points, and is backed by a tree of somewhat smaller
height with fiat stones and bushes. No. 2, ha\ing the name
of the " Moon-Shadow Stone," occupies a position on the
furthermost prominence, paired with a flat stone ; the same
eftect may be produced by a group of shrub bushes, with
a stone lantern of larger size, and a spreading pine-tree. No.
3, a flat stone of same group, corresponds to the Hill 2 in the
" Finished Style." No. 4 is indispensable. The " Principal De-
clining Stone" is placed by the water. It may serve as an
" Idling Stone," No. 10, of the Plate I, previously described.
No. 5 is the " Seat-of-Honour Stone," accompanied by a com-
panion stone and bushes, and is often backed by the "Tree of
the Evening Sun.'' No. 6 forms the bank of the stream and
extends to the east. Here the lake is reduced to a mere stream.
It has its source behind the "Guardian Stone," amidst rock-
work. Both sides of the stream are connected by a log bridge.
A water-basin in the foreground is quite alone. The stepping
stones are somewhat larger. No. 9, the " Pedestal Stone," and
No. 8, the " Label Stone," are intended to be equally perfect
imitations of nature.
A GENTLEMAN'S GARDEN
145
Japanese Landscape Gardening
FLAT GARDEN— INTERMEDIARY STYLE
FLAT GARDEN — ROUGH STYLE
146
European and Japanese Gardens
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w^-'
^•»^,
^ -
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Si^l
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STONE STEPS
HAKONE TEMPLE
FLAT GARDP:N — FINISHED STVLK.
Now we have to describe the Flat Gardens [liira-uiica)
shown in Plates I\\ V and VI. Here is shown a \alley or a
pond. The three styles: Finished, Intermediary and Roiig'h are
as important in Flat Gardens as they are in Hill Gardens.
Japanese Landscape Gardening
,-.-j'.yjj'4-a.-..-ii.
KUNOOZAN TEMPLE AT SHIZUOKA
European and Japanese Garde
NS
In an example of style (Plate IV) most of the ground is
covered with fine earth. Stone i, the "Guardian Stone,"
and Stone 2, " Principal Rock," occupy the center, and with
other rock-work form the mouth of a cascade.
Although no water is visible, yet the conception of the
source is never neglected, for it is represented bv a white peb-
ble. It is backed by stones Nos. 3 and 4, which would not
GARDEN LANTERNS
WATER-BASINS AND LANTERNS
149
Japanese Landscape Gardening
fail to give an idea of the hidden spring. Stone 5, " Worship-
ping Stone," occupies a very important position in the center
of the ground. No. 7 is called the " Island Stone," as the land
extends far enough to give an appearance of an island. No.
6, the " Perfect View Stone," besides the well, is arranged with
shrubs in connection with other stones. No. 8, " Moon-Shadow
Stone," is re-enforced with rock- work and bushes. No. 9 is a
group called the "Stone of the Evening Sun." Behind them
HOUSE GARDEN
we have the large "Tree of the Evening Sun." Tree No. i, the
"Principal Tree," and the "Cascade Tree," are evergreens, to
be visible between Stones i and 2. The "Tree of Solitude" is
represented by two small pines in connection with shrubs.
Plants and a stone lantern marked D are also placed so as to
be attractive. A well, and a water-basin, as well as the ever-
greens, form a part of the foreground. On the western side
one notes a water-basin A, a stone lantern B, a screen fence,
150
European and Japanese Gardens
and a trained pine. This comljination shows a cultivated
taste. In the foreground is placed Stone No. lo, termed
"Stone of the Two Gods." No. 1 1, " Pedestal Stone," and No.
12, "Level Stone," are placed among^ the stepping-stones.
In this form of garden a cleared ground is arranged in the
center. Stepping-stones are placed near the well and water-
basin and mark the boundarv.
FLAT garden — INTERMEDIARY STYLE.
Plate V is intended to give an idea of the " Intermediary
Style" of a "Flat Garden." It is somewhat more boldly exe-
cuted than the previous one. In the middle and in front of No.
2 or "Seat-of-Honour Stone " one hnds the " Guardian Stone "
No. I, with pagoda stone A as well as a pine-tree and a few
shrubby plants. No. 3, " Moon-Shadow Stone," is placed in the
further end in combination with a flat stone. No. 4 and No.
5 consists of the "Worshipping Stone" and the "Stone of the
Setting Sun," as they are designated. The latter fronts to the
west; thence comes the name. No. 6, "Stone of Two Ciods,"
is similar to the previous one. No. 7, "Pedestal Stone," and
No. 8, "Level Stone," form a feature of the foreground and with
a few^ stepping-stones form the border of the ground and
lead from the gate to the well. Besides these there is also a
large oblong step in front of the veranda answering to the
threshold. An open space in the center of the garden is the
ideal representation of water while the "Worshipping Stone"
there signifies an island. The well, as might be judged from its
appearance, is rather primitive in style, being made of a rough-
hewn stone, and being perfectly overhung with thick pines
and a few^ aquatic plants. The arrangement of the water-
basin, fence and lantern is very similar to the preceding
one, but in this example a bolder and simpler form is adopted.
Of the two stone lanterns, the one in the east is arranged with
rocks and the other with a small clump of trees. No. 3 rep-
resents the "Tree of Solitude ;" No. 2, the "Tree of the Evening
Sun." A large pine No. i, besides the " Worshii)ping Stone,"
plays a very important role ; No. 4, the " Outstretching Pine,"
overhangs the well.
151
Japanese Landscape Gardening
FLAT GARDEN — ROUGH STYLE.
Plate VI will give an idea of this style, in which the ele-
ments so luxuriously represented in the previous forms are
simplified ; in this case the ground itself is reduced to a
layer of fine earth. A well, a lantern, and trees, stones, etc.,
illustrate this peculiar type with a water basin and a drain,
two small groups of stones, a few stepping-stones on spa-
cious ground. Stone i, in the center, is termed ''Guardian
Stone"; Stone No. 2 is known as "Worshipping Stone," or
"Honour Stone"; the two merge into one, with two combi-
nations of the Stone 3. Stone 3, located in the west and
termed the "Stone of the Setting Sun," forms a quite im-
portant element, to which are combined two other rocks, one
bush, and one large-leaved plant. No. 4, called "Stone of the
Two Gods," is the typical one among a smaller group of orna-
ments in the eastern foreground. Here the stepping-stones are
rather few. They are bolder, and somewhat rough in nature.
GARDEN OF THE AKASAKA RIKIU
152
European and Japanese Gardens
but no hewn stone is introduced in this style of garden. Two
pines, shrubs, and a group of low plants are all the vegetation
required in the garden. These, together with a few water
plants, serve to cover a rustic well. A large "Snow-stone lant-
ern " also forms a part of this group. In the corner of the
foreground to the west are shown a water-basin, a drain, and a
screen fence. A bamboo enclosure of simple nature encircles
the garden.
iJ
liMpHU
GARDEN FENCES
LANTERNS.
Plate VII gives the different types of garden-lanterns.
Every Japanese garden must have a stone lantern. They add
greatly to the composition of the garden in connection with
rock-work, shrubs, trees, fences and water-basin. In introducing
stone lanterns, however, strict principles of harmony, both in
size and form, must be observed, otherwise it would be detri-
mental to the effect of the garden itself. They are generally
located at the foot of a hill, on an island, on the bank of
a lake, by a well or a water-basin. The use of the lantern
■53
Japanese Landscape Gardening
GARDEN GATEWAYS
is not to give light, as might be supposed, but it serves only
as an architectural ornament. True, sometimes the lantern is
lighted, but it is generally in a very limited extent. When
the lantern is situated along the lake or by a stream, it is
generally lighted, to produce a fine efi'ect against the water.
watp:r-basins.
Plate VIII represents dift'erent styles of water-basins and
stone lanterns, not mentioned elsewhere. The proper use of a
water-basin, is for washing the hands; and it is therefore
placed near the veranda of a house ; but water-basins, with other
accessories, such as lanterns, bridges, etc., are designed to
be an attraction in a garden, and when placed beside orna-
mental hedges or concealed by foliage are very pleasing in
effect.
GARDEN FP:NCES.
Plate IX gives different types of hedges and bamboo screens
such as are used in the garden. Sometimes they serve as the
boundary of the garden ; on other occasions they serve to
shelter obstacles, while in other cases they only serve as or-
naments. They are arranged along water-basins, and are
154
European and Japanese Garden;
^^ia»
GARDEN BRIDGES
GARDEN ARBORS
termed "Sleeve Fences" {sode-gaki). They are generally
made of bamboo, held by wooden frames, twigs or branches.
They are intended to give a rustic aspect. Cords and knots, as
used for force work, are always objects of high importance.
Fibers of sago, fancifully colored, are well deserving of merit,
although in many cases creepers are used.
155
Japanese Landsape Gardening
GATFAVAVS.
Plate X gives grates and gateways. Every garden is pro-
vided with different forms of entrances. Tliese forms vary ac-
cording to the size, style, and nature of the garden. The site
of a eatewav is alwavs carefullv chosen.
CzARDEN BRIDGES.
Plate XI illustrates different kinds of garden bridges.
Some of them are made of stone, while others are formed by
rock-work, with earth on them. It is not intended to give a
quick access over a water course, but rather to add an attrac-
tion to a garden. It equally serves to allow a pleasant view of
the pond and stream beneath to those who may stroll over it.
SUMMER HOUSES — ARBORS.
A large garden is invariably provided with one or more
summer houses or arbors, constructed on a hill or other emi-
nence. From the summer house usually a charming view can
be obtained of the garden. Different types are given in Plate
XII. They vary from the simple to a very artistic construc-
tion, with floors, doors, and windows. The Japanese denounce
geometrical regularity, as it is always thought to vitiate the
taste.
156
NOTES ON
A JAPANESE GARDEN
IN CALIFORNIA
^V C. H. Townscnd
NOTES ON
A JAPANESE GARDEN
IN CALIEORNIA
By C. H. rOWNSEND
AN experiment has been in process of development in
San Francisco, wliich illustrates the possibilities of
1^ introducing the pleasing and picturesque effects of
Japanese g'ardens in a foreign country. The accompanying-
illustrations from this garden are interesting when studied in
connection with the subject as it is presented by Mr. Honda,
and as it has l)een shown in the \ arious illustrations from exist-
ing gardens in Japan.
THE ENTRANCE
JAPANESE GARDEN IN CALIFORNI
159
Notes on a Japanese Garden in California
It is interesting to observe the variations in feelin^^^ and
effects between it and the i^^ardens in Japan. The greater free-
dom of treatment and less conventionality shown in this gar-
den may probably be attributed to the influence of work in
this country on the gardener, or possibly to the lack of age,
which is an im-
portant factor in
the hnal produc-
tion of the effects
attained.
A Japanese
gardener, Mr.
Hagiwara, and
his family were
secured, and the
design, planting
and making of
the garden was
left entirely in
their hands.
This garden is
probably the only
important one of
its kind in this
country, but its
accessibility to the
public has been
the means of at-
tracting consider-
able attention to
the methods of
the Japanese gar-
dener. The gar-
den was opened to the public as a Japanese Exhibit at the
Mid-Winter Fair in California in 1893. Its attractions were
immediately recognized and its development has prospered
under the Park Commission, which is fully alive to its value
as one of the city's pleasure grounds.
The tract selected for the garden was covered with a scat-
tered growth of pine trees perhaps fifteen years old, most of
which were permitted to remain, but which have been consid-
FLOWERS IN POTS
A JAPANESE GARDEN IN CALIFORNIA
European axd Japanese Gardens
Notes on a Japanese Garden in California
SUMMER-HOUSE AND STREAM
A JAPANESE GARDEN IN CALIFORNIA
erably altered in appearance by Mr. Hagivvara. The ground
occupied is nearly an acre in extent. A Japanese family
reside in the garden, the ladies, always in native costume,
serving tea to visitors for a small charge.
The garden at San Francisco is one of very brief growth
as compared with the ancient gardens of Japan, but its at-
tractions have been added to from time to time and have
increased with its age. The composition of the Japanese
garden depends chiefly upon the arrangement of its trees,
boulders, paths, streams, bridges and other artificial structures.
It is, least of all, a flower garden, and is probably best under-
stood when regarded as a reduced copy of the scenery of a
country — conveying the impression produced by a picture.
While it is true that most of the visitors to this transplanted
garden regard it as merely a novelty, it is nevertheless one of
a type that would be most satisfactory if adopted generally in
this country. Its various features remain attractive throughout
the year and afford opportunities for continuous development.
162
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