Lorentz, Stanisław; Rottermund, Andrzej: Neoclassicism in Poland (Warsaw, 1986)

Siedlec, draft design of the pałace of the Krzycki family, J.Ch. Kamsetzer, c. 1790

come into contact with the fashion of picturesąue gardens, as opposed to linear ones, which
was then spreading all over Europę. Because he was very talented, receptive and with broad
interests - this was soon reflected in his work. In an article on garden residences in Warsaw
and its district, published in 1784 in Theorie des Gartenkunst by C.C.L. Hirschfeld, when
describing Powązki, Zug pointed out still another source of new ideas, the role of Izabela
Czartoryska in the shaping of the local landscape park. He wrote: “The trip to England
helped this Lady to find ideas in great taste; she brought them along when she came back”.
Certainly, not only Czartoryska, but also other magnate patrons exerted significant influence
not only on the generał conception of the gardens designed, but also frequently on their motifs
and particular park elements.
Doubtless, an enormous role in the spreading of the idea of decorative gardening was played
by patterns contained in engraved publications, including the Recueil des jardins anglo-
chinois, known in Poland and published in Paris in 1776-1788, and the richly illustrated
publications of William Chambers.
The first landscape parks were laid out in the area of Warsaw in the early seventies. They
included Solec, the property of the Prince Chamberlain Kazimierz Poniatowski, and
Powązki, belonging to the Czartoryski family; there were also the gardens belonging to the
Prince Chamberlain at Książęce and Góra nearby; the gardens of the MarshaPs wife, Countess
Lubomirska, at Mokotów; of Fryderyk Alojzy Briihl at Młociny; of Bishop, later Primate,
Michał Poniatowski at Jabłonna; of the Commander-in-Chief’s wife, Aleksandra Ogińska, at
Aleksandria near Siedlce, and finally, of Helena Radziwiłł, at Arkadia near Nieborów. In his
article of 1784, Zug distinctly emphasized that the design at Solec had been the first Polish
garden in the English style (c. 1772). Arkadia was laid out in 1778, and was later transformed
and expanded over many years. All of these parks and also others were connected with Zug.
The parks which he designed wfere composed in keeping with the principles of the landscape
park, with an irregular arrangement of paths, artificial streams with complicated meanders,
freely grouped vegetation, meadows with clusters of trees and shrubs, clearings, waterfalls,
pools with islets, ponds with irregular banks, bridges of varying shape, fountains,
underground corridors, richly furnished and decorated. artificial grottoes from large
boulders. Zug was unboundedly ingenious in his use of the features of the terrain, which was
so greatly important in the design of landscape parks, and in the composition of surprising
vistas and picturesąue arrangements of architecture and vegetation.
There was an extreme richness and variety of architectural and decorative motifs in the parks

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