File:The art of landscape gardening (1907) (14784233082).jpg

Identifier: artoflandscapega00rept (find matches)
Title: The art of landscape gardening
Year: 1907 (1900s)
Authors: Repton, Humphry, 1752-1818 Nolen, John, 1869-1937 American Society of Landscape Architects
Subjects: Landscape gardening
Publisher: Boston : Houghton, Mifflin Company, Riverside Press)
Contributing Library: NCSU Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: NCSU Libraries

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e to her; but whereverit is useless, it becomes distasteful, because it takes awayvariety. Therefore, things that we see in successionought to have variety, for our soul has no difficulty inseeing them ; those, on the contrary, that we see at oneglance, ought to have symmetry: thus, at one glancewe see the front of a building, a parterre, a temple; insuch things there is always a symmetry which pleasesthe soul by the facility it gives her of taking in the wholeobject at once. It is upon this principle that I have frequentlyadvised the most perfect symmetry in those smallflower-gardens which are generally placed in the frontof a greenhouse, or orangery, in some inner part ofthe grounds; where, being secluded from the generalscenery, they become a kind of episode to the great andmore conspicuous parts of the place. In such smallenclosures irregularity would appear like affectation.Symmetry is also allowable, and indeed necessary, ator near the front of a regular building; because, where
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Formal Gardening 47 that displays correspondent parts, if the lines in con-tact do not also correspond, the house itself will appeartwisted and awry. Yet this degree of symmetry oughtto go no farther than a small distance from the house,and should be confined merely to such objects as areconfessedly works of art for the uses of man ; such asa road, a walk, or an ornamental fence, whether ofwood or iron; but it is not necessary that it shouldextend to plantations, canals, or over the natural shapeof the ground. In forming plans for embellishing afield, an artist without taste employs straight lines, cir-cles, and squares, because these look best upon paper.He perceives not that to humour and adorn nature isthe perfection of his art; and that nature, neglectingregularity, distributes her objects in great variety, witha bold hand. (Some old gardens were disposed like thehuman frame; alleys, like legs and arms, answeringeach other; the great walk in the middle representingthe trunk of the

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