DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16632#0461
History of Garden Art
This care for the park and its cultivation is by no means unfamiliar in Renaissance times,
but the close connection of its main design with that of the garden points to a period
which is still to come.
In the same way the third book, which treats of water, adhering to all the fantastic
ideas of the Renaissance, rejoicing m every one of the innumerable water-devices, and
demanding a great extension and development of cascades, does try most energetically to
enforce strict regularity even in the domain of water. It is admitted that tricks of teasing
waters in grottoes, and pumice and shells for decoration, are all wonderful attractions for the
people on festival days; but anyone who is sensible, large-minded and thoughtful is fond
of great sheets of water, and canals like rivers: it is to sing of these that his lyre shall
be strung. To this poem of Rapin's, which is by far the best of his works, and long
enjoyed a high renown, he later added a treatment of the same subject in prose. Here
he shows learning both fundamental and far-reaching, and in the form of a representation
of the Quarrel between Ancients and Moderns he puts forward the modern view; men of
the old style, he admits, were full of enthusiasm for garden architecture, but remained
stationary at one stage of their art; whereas all progress, all individual art, belonged to the
moderns. The garden of Alcinous was nothing more than a peasant's garden, and even
there we found very few kinds of fruits.
Now, however, the garden is the glory of the age, and its noblest art, and there is
no house worth looking at that cannot boast of its show garden. "What once was a servant's
work is now the achievement and delight of the master."
These words may serve as a motto for the period of garden art upon whose threshold
Rapin stood, the age of Louis XIV.
This care for the park and its cultivation is by no means unfamiliar in Renaissance times,
but the close connection of its main design with that of the garden points to a period
which is still to come.
In the same way the third book, which treats of water, adhering to all the fantastic
ideas of the Renaissance, rejoicing m every one of the innumerable water-devices, and
demanding a great extension and development of cascades, does try most energetically to
enforce strict regularity even in the domain of water. It is admitted that tricks of teasing
waters in grottoes, and pumice and shells for decoration, are all wonderful attractions for the
people on festival days; but anyone who is sensible, large-minded and thoughtful is fond
of great sheets of water, and canals like rivers: it is to sing of these that his lyre shall
be strung. To this poem of Rapin's, which is by far the best of his works, and long
enjoyed a high renown, he later added a treatment of the same subject in prose. Here
he shows learning both fundamental and far-reaching, and in the form of a representation
of the Quarrel between Ancients and Moderns he puts forward the modern view; men of
the old style, he admits, were full of enthusiasm for garden architecture, but remained
stationary at one stage of their art; whereas all progress, all individual art, belonged to the
moderns. The garden of Alcinous was nothing more than a peasant's garden, and even
there we found very few kinds of fruits.
Now, however, the garden is the glory of the age, and its noblest art, and there is
no house worth looking at that cannot boast of its show garden. "What once was a servant's
work is now the achievement and delight of the master."
These words may serve as a motto for the period of garden art upon whose threshold
Rapin stood, the age of Louis XIV.