File:Charles Eliot, landscape architect - a lover of nature and of his kind, who trained himself for a new profession, practised it happily and through it wrought much good (1902) (14768724515).jpg

Identifier: charleseliotland01elio (find matches)
Title: Charles Eliot, landscape architect : a lover of nature and of his kind, who trained himself for a new profession, practised it happily and through it wrought much good
Year: 1902 (1900s)
Authors: Eliot, Charles W. (Charles William), 1834-1926
Subjects: Eliot, Charles, 1859-1897 Landscape architects
Publisher: Boston : Houghton Mifflin
Contributing Library: Robarts - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: University of Toronto

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tate, under the patronage of Dr. Hosack, who succeededDr. Bard as proprietor. No man ever undertook a moreresponsible service in the realm of taste applied to landscape,nor one in which it would have been easier to fail by spoilingwhat Nature had so magnificently provided. What a contrastis his work to the usual practice of the modern amateur, who,being a cultivated gentleman, considers himself quite able tolay out his own place. With the help of a jobbing gardener,he too often first despoils the natural scene of much thatmakes its character and beauty, for the sake of introducingsupposedly decorative elements, such as strange trees and theshort-lived brilliancy of flower beds. Montgomery Place andHyde Park should teach us better. The soft and tranquilbeauty of the gentle landscape of the first named, and thebroad stateliness of the upland scenery of the second, mustimpress all sensitive minds, as no splendor of embellishmentcan. Decorative gardening, as it is often introduced in mod-
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JET. 29) ADAPTING LANDSCAPE TO USE 269 ern country-seats, — that is, in patches scattered here andthere, — would at once kill the effectiveness of these old seats.Their power over the mind and heart consists chiefly in theunity of the impression which they make. Their scenery isartificial in the sense that Nature, working alone, would neverhave produced it; but the art which has here mended na-ture, to use Shakespeares phrase, has worked with Natureand not against her. It has, by judicious thinning, helpedNature to grow great trees; it has spread wide carpets ofgreen where Nature hinted she was willing grass should grow;it has in one place induced a screen of foliage to grow thickly,and in another place it has disclosed a hidden vision of bluedistance; and so, while it has adapted Natures landscape tohuman use, it has also, as it were, concentrated and intensi-fied the expression of each scene. Almost all natural land-scapes are redundant sources of more or less confused beauty,ou

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