Historic Styles of Landscape Design.— In studying existing works of landscape archi tecture we find that we may consider in groups works which produce a similar effect on the beholder on account of a fundamental similar ity in their organization; and this similarity of organization comes in the case of each group from a similarity of conditions under which the examples in the group were brought forth, —conditions, namely, of their physical environment and material, of the people who made them, and of the purposes for which they were produced. We find that the various historic styles of landscape design which have been differentiated have taken their names usu ally from the peoples which originated them and the countries in which they arose, occa sionally from an individual whose name was associated with certain definite pieces of work which were the first examples of the style, and, rarely, from the total esthetic effect produced by the style; for instance, Italian style, style of LenTotre, Romantic style. From the point of view of the fundamental ideal ex pressed by the designer, styles of landscape design fall into two classes, those which ex press the dominance and the will of man and those which express the designer's apprecia tion of the power and beauty of nature. We may call the styles in the first of these cate gories humanized and those in the second, naturalistic. Since giving an object geomet rical form is a common and obvious way of maldng it express man's will, the term formal has often been used in the sense of man-made or man-dominated, but the two terms are not synonymous, for there are many informal de signs which nevertheless are definitely and ob viously humanized. The hand of the designer and his artistic achievement may be recor nized as fully in this design as in mans formally-arranged compositions. The follow ing review may serve to suggest how the most clearly characterized historic styles have taken form, each under its own circumstances.
The Egyptians have left us records of their gardens, which in their early form were inner courts with fruit and ornamental plants, but later were eattended outside to larger rectan gular areas, formally planted. The Babylonian gardens are known to have been terraced, commanding extensive views, as in the case of the famous °hanging gardens° of Babylon, and cooled and decorated by water features. In ancient Persia, again, water was a leading element in the arclosed gardens, which were made pleasant and,grateful to the dwellers in the hot and dry chm.tte by shade and fruit, and were usually adjacent to an extensive thickly-planted wilderness or park. The °groves° and orchards Of the Greeks reflect the influence of Persia on the treat ment of outdoor areas after the Persian wars. Classic pleasure-grounds, however, find their highest development in the Rotnan villas, for instance, Pliny's Laurentine and Tusculan villas, and Hadrian's•at Tivoli,—carried out as splendid architectural schemes, and with regard to the advantages of cool breezes, view, shade and the decorative beauty of water and statu ary. In the Middle Ages we find in the mon asteries gardens primarily utilitarian, of which Saint Gall, with its four areas of fruit, vege tables, herbs and flowers, is perhaps the most famous.mminple;,and correspondingly for the pleasure of the inhabitants of the castles, as feudal life became less war-like,. the terrace walks along the castle walls grew into enclosed , separate gardens furnished for outdoor enjoy ment. Meanwhile in the Far East landscape de sign had been developing to a high degree of definiteness and fish. Chinese gardens, said to date from earlier than 400 s.c., took the form of miniature landscapes, carefully de signed and enclosed; and with the spread of Chinese culture the Japanese took suggestion from these landscape gardens of China and ultimately produced styles of garden design which expressed their reverence for nature, wrought out, conventionalized and symbolized by successive generations of artists, in forms of great intrinsic beauty. The Moorish gar dens in Spain had, for their direct prototype the gardens of , Persia and Syria. They were patios surrounded. by buildings, shady, cool, full of the scent of flowers, and the splash and sparkle of running water. The gardens were necessarily a part of the architectural scheme, both being in a clearly marked style which molded the culture of Spain, and through the Spaniards influenced the style of the buildings and gardens of Mexico and Cali fornia. The villas of the proud, powerful,
ostentatious, artistic nobles of the Italian Re naissance were based on the design of the gardens of the old Roman patricians and served a mode of life not very different. They were usually the unified work of one designer, often a well-known architect,or sculptor, and the style of the garden designs reflects the rise and development of the style of the Re naissance in the other arts. The villas were set on steep-sided hills facing the open view and the cool breeze. In earlier' times the de sign was simple,— the' main building and its terrace being the centre of a scheme of gar dens with still pools, and statues and foun tains, often of great, seulptneal etseellence- In later times the villas became more conscious architectural schemes of axial relation, of dec oration less for intrinsic merit than for general effect_ Throughout the three centuries of their development there *as shown in the villas a feeling for the beauty of water, displayed in increasingly ways, for the relief of shade and its .contrast in design with open sunlit spaces, for the inspiration of the open distant view, and a feeling, never as yet else where equalled, for effective formal design in materials of architecture and vegetation. In France, England and Holland the Renaissance called forth an expression of architectural de sign in outdoor areas, stimulated by. Italian influence, which flowered in different periods. The. Dutch had their small, trim, topiary gar dens; the English their Tudor and Elizabethan country estates with pleasant flower gardens, stretches of turf, and homely kitchen gardens, enclosed one next to the other; and the French had their great open and large gar dens, consisting of different treatments of rectangular units more or less intervisible,— precursors of the work of Le Notre. Coin cident with the later Renaissance, but spring ing from Persian influence through the Mo gul dynasty, a style of garden design was produced in India, which, as in other hot cli mates, utilizing shade and flowers and fruit, and water in long pools and splashing foun tains or waterfalls, covered• areas so great that•the designs rival in magnificence those of the Grand Style in France. Le Notre's work at Versailles expressed the power of France and the magnificence of Louis XIV. Built on fiat ground, the gardens produced the effect of great extent with recognizable -unity and variety of open and wooded areas by the use of allies, here for the first tune employed at so great a scale, separating one bosquet from another, connecting various points of in terest, forming vistas large and small centred upon the architectural and sculptural decora tion of the scheme. Next the garden facade of the main buildings, a great terrace deco rated with water basins or carpet-bedding, served as a foreground to the architectural design. This formal design • in the manner° extending its influence all over Eu rope, even into Riesia,. and often carried to extremes by incompetent designers, invited a reaction toward the inspiration of Nature. The Landscape Style, originating in England where it was expressed in the work of Kent and Brown, was influenced deeply by the work of such landscape painters as Claude Lorraine and also somewhat by ideas introduced from China. It spread. to France and to other parts of the Continent with the Romantic movement and fell later into extremes as unfortunate as any of those of formal design. It sub stituted the formless for the formal, and the Romantic symbol for esthetic unity,. before it settled .to the • more rational landscape style of Repton in England and of Pficicler-Muslcau in Germany. The work of Renton and his followers snspired the park-like estates in America with which Downing was familiar and the tradition of which he followed in his designs, laying, hoWever, increasing emphasis on the use of native vegetation. At the time of his death in 1852, the industrial growth of the United States had begun to cause conges tion in towns, and Downing was a leader in the movement to ameliorate the life of town dwellers by the provision of .public parks.