DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.50017#0019
INTRODUCTION xiii
straight channels and basins determines its main
features — and the straight and clipped (toped or
tonsured) hedges and trees are really subordinate to
the lines of water.1
In Gardening, which is eclectic and cosmopolitan,
more perhaps than in any other art, it is difficult to
draw hard and fast lines in discriminating styles and
schools. They overlap, merge and intersect—for
every man feels ancW io son pittore in his own
Garden, and every one with a garden loves to plan
and alter, and is not withheld from modifying and
changing the features of the ground and its design by
any sense of incapacity, such as he might feel were he
to essay to alter the elevation of a house, re-paint an
old master, or try his hand at chipping off bits of a
marble statue. This freedom in dealing with “ the
art of landscape,” when the materials are Nature’s
own, has its advantages and disadvantages. It allows
scope for individual originality and enterprise, but it
also leads to the destruction of types and styles, which
another generation tries in vain to revive. What
would we not now give to see intact Pope’s five acres
1 The present Editor has tried to sketch the literary and
engraved history of the early Dutch Garden in Holland, in
three Essays in “ Country Life” (1905).
straight channels and basins determines its main
features — and the straight and clipped (toped or
tonsured) hedges and trees are really subordinate to
the lines of water.1
In Gardening, which is eclectic and cosmopolitan,
more perhaps than in any other art, it is difficult to
draw hard and fast lines in discriminating styles and
schools. They overlap, merge and intersect—for
every man feels ancW io son pittore in his own
Garden, and every one with a garden loves to plan
and alter, and is not withheld from modifying and
changing the features of the ground and its design by
any sense of incapacity, such as he might feel were he
to essay to alter the elevation of a house, re-paint an
old master, or try his hand at chipping off bits of a
marble statue. This freedom in dealing with “ the
art of landscape,” when the materials are Nature’s
own, has its advantages and disadvantages. It allows
scope for individual originality and enterprise, but it
also leads to the destruction of types and styles, which
another generation tries in vain to revive. What
would we not now give to see intact Pope’s five acres
1 The present Editor has tried to sketch the literary and
engraved history of the early Dutch Garden in Holland, in
three Essays in “ Country Life” (1905).