LANDSCAPE GARDENING, the art of laying out grounds in order to beauty and pleasure, which may fairly claim to be reckoned among the fine arts. It is chiefly prac ticed either in connection with the residences of the opulent, or in the public parks and pleasure-grounds of cities. The happiest results are indeed obtained where the mere purpose of pleasing is not too much obtruded on attention, but where it is seen to harmonize with some other design.
Where the general aspect of a country is wild, and has been little modified by culti vation, inclosures, and other Works of man, those scenes are felt to he most pleasing which exhibit his progresS and triumph. Thus, when pleasure-grounds first began to be laid out, they exhibited only geometric forms; and alleys, avenues, and par terres did not seem artificial enough to give delight without buildings of various kinds, terraces, mounds, artificial hills, lakes, and streams, close-clipped hedges, and trees or shrubs trimmed by topiarian art into fantastic shapes, such as figures of animals, vases, and the like. The art of the topiarius of from the Augustan age in Rome—is now no longer in repute. In districts where the general scene exhibits a suc cession of rectangular fields, and where everything has evidently been reduced to a con dition subservient to utility, a greater irregularity gives pleasure, and the eye loves to rest on any portion of the landscape which seems to exhibit the original beauties of nature. The landscape gardener, however, must not attempt an exact imitation of nature, or to reduce everything to a state of primitive wildness. Like the painter, he
must seek to exhibit nature idealized. The of water is seldom successful; the mere landscape gardener's lake or cascade is too obviously artificial. Where water is within view, it is a chief object of the landscape gardener to arrange everything so that the view of it may be enjoyed from the windows of the mansion, or from the princi pal walks. Much care is given to the disposal of wood, in masses, groups, and single trees. Belts and clumps, which were much in vogue in the latter part of the 18th c., are now comparatively seldom planted.
The style of landscape gardening in which regular forms prevail is called the geometric; and the opposite style, from having been first extensively practiced in Eng land, in which country, indeed, it may be said to have originated, is known as the English. On the continent of Europe, a pleasure-ground laid out with winding and irregular walks, and scattered trees or groups of trees and shrubs, is called an English garden. But many of the continental English gardens are rather caricatures of the true English style than illustrations of it.
The taste of the present age rejects the grottoes, temples, statues, monuments, foun tains, jets-d'eau, etc., with which it was once the fashion to fill pleasure-grounds, or admits only of their sparing introduction.
In the laying out of grounds, whether on a large or a small scale, it is of great importance that the trees and shrubs be well chosen, and the different kinds well grouped.