International studio (32.1907)

The Mannheim Tercentenary Exhibition

being realised in a very uncommon way, an im-
portant matter which too many of the younger
men i0nore. Cairati shows that the technique of a
virtuoso alone can make a picture, though the
subject be merely a few earthen vases. A wall is
covered by Whistler’s etchings, lent by the Victoria
and Albert Museum, and with them hangs a superb
Portrait of a Girl in white, painted in his most
fluent manner.

Tne general idea for garden architecture is due
to Professor Lauger, who has also a special
garden, with a long pavilion designed for a bath-
house, and an open pool in front. Many of the
gardens are designed by well-known architects and
artists; some in a severe and formal style, others
more freely decorated landscape gardening, de-
pending for their effect more on colour and
arrangement of flower-beds than on masonry.

The old-fashioned formal garden is generally
pleasing, not only from its old-world flavour, but
from the fact that its cypress, yew or box hedges
were cut and trimmed to give an architectural

character, acting as a transition between house and
flower garden, which they connected and har-
monised. They blended and united in full aesthetic
continuity, for the garden walls were living things-
themselves. They also extended the geometrical
plan of the house, and made the garden part of it,,
and not a separate entity. A house does directly
affect the garden; its openings—especially of course
its doors—directly come into connection with it,
and this demands the garden being kept in the style;
of the dwelling ; here, in Germany, it is the garden,
architect who is responsible for the result, the
dethroned gardener merely carrying out his ideas..
The garden serves for entry to the house, as a strolling
place, and as an open-air lounge; it is indeed
now looked upon, in a sense, as an outside room.
The fact that a yew hedge of reasonable height
takes half a century to train, made it necessary to
replace it by actual masonry. Many garden archi-
tects use large unbroken plane surfaces quite free
of ornament, simple forms, and straight lines..
Monotony can be avoided by variety of surface;

ROOM IN SILVER, MANNHEIM EXHIBITION

DESIGNED BY C. A. BERMANN
SCULPTURE BY THE SAME

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