DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16633#0347
Tendencies of Garden Art in the Nineteenth Century
327
last years of the previous century, became very popular fifty years later. Fuchsias were
brought in during the first half of the century; and about the middle came many orchids
and innumerable quantities of hot-house plants.
Kew Gardens, founded by the Dowager Princess of Wales m 1759, soon acquired
a European reputation. As early as 1789 between five and six thousand kinds of plants
were growing there; and when a second list came out in 1810-13, the number had increased
to eleven thousand. In 1839 the Botanic Society was founded in London, and did every-
thing that could be done to help the study of scientific botany. The effect of this enormous
FIG. 606. BRANITZ—VIEW IN THE PARK WITH SOLITARY TREES
increase of plant material on the one side, and the growth of scientific botany on the
other, with the accompanying knowledge of the geographical distribution of plants, soon
become apparent.
The sentimental period had passed away, having lived itself out. The fashion of
composing poetry and talking philosophy in such garden scenery as was supposed to
express a definite thought or feeling—a fashion which appealed strongly to German
theorists at the turn of the century—had dwindled away to nothing. Moreover, people grew
weary of tricks and playthings in gardens. "La nature," says Alphand in the seventies,
"finissait par triompher de tout cet ameublement baroque." The garden artist was drawn
more and more towards the actual plants, and since he wanted to get a real acquaintance
with the bewildering number of things offered to his choice, his chief study must needs
be botany. Thus the garden fell entirely into the hands of the gardener and the botanist,
seeming to elude the architect altogether. People plunged into a study of the conditions
327
last years of the previous century, became very popular fifty years later. Fuchsias were
brought in during the first half of the century; and about the middle came many orchids
and innumerable quantities of hot-house plants.
Kew Gardens, founded by the Dowager Princess of Wales m 1759, soon acquired
a European reputation. As early as 1789 between five and six thousand kinds of plants
were growing there; and when a second list came out in 1810-13, the number had increased
to eleven thousand. In 1839 the Botanic Society was founded in London, and did every-
thing that could be done to help the study of scientific botany. The effect of this enormous
FIG. 606. BRANITZ—VIEW IN THE PARK WITH SOLITARY TREES
increase of plant material on the one side, and the growth of scientific botany on the
other, with the accompanying knowledge of the geographical distribution of plants, soon
become apparent.
The sentimental period had passed away, having lived itself out. The fashion of
composing poetry and talking philosophy in such garden scenery as was supposed to
express a definite thought or feeling—a fashion which appealed strongly to German
theorists at the turn of the century—had dwindled away to nothing. Moreover, people grew
weary of tricks and playthings in gardens. "La nature," says Alphand in the seventies,
"finissait par triompher de tout cet ameublement baroque." The garden artist was drawn
more and more towards the actual plants, and since he wanted to get a real acquaintance
with the bewildering number of things offered to his choice, his chief study must needs
be botany. Thus the garden fell entirely into the hands of the gardener and the botanist,
seeming to elude the architect altogether. People plunged into a study of the conditions