The English Landscape School
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The English
Landscape
School
The development of the English
Landscape School has a particular
bearing upon the later emergence
of the profession of landscape
architecture.
There are direct linkages between
ideas of the eighteenth century
landscape gardeners (who also
called themselves 'improvers') and
the first landscape architects. This
is historically traceable - i.e. Brown
/ Repton - Loudon / Paxton Olmsted.
Also the idea of that use could be
combined with beauty, which has
been central to much landscape
architectural thinking, was
developed during the period of
the English Landscape School.
ORIGINS:
Art
In the 17th century there was a
turn towards idealised landscapes
as subjects for paintings.
Significant landscape painters of
the period were: Claude Lorraine
(1600-1682). Nicholas Poussin
(1594-1665), Gaspard Poussin
(alias Dughet; 1613-1675).
Poussin's Funeral of
Phocian (1648)
Poussin and Lorraine pained
classical scenes based upon the
landscape around Rome.
Salvator Rosa (1615- 1673) painted
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rather more vigorous subjects:
battles, shipwrecks, steep and
bare mountains. (see discussion of
the Sublime which follows).
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Poussin's Ideal
Landscape
The main point to grasp is that
landscapes themselves became
important subjects of painting for
the first time. Although these
pictures had a 'story' the visual
aspects of the setting had
attained much more importance.
It was the dawning, in the West, of
a new appreciation of the qualities
of natural landscape.
Possible Links to China
As we have seen, the dominant
17th century tradition in the West
was still based on symmetry, order
and mathematical proportion.
But Sir William Temple, a diplomat
by profession, wrote Upon the
Gardens of Epicurus: or of
Gardening in the Year 1685, which
hinted at a different way of doing
things, and referred to the Chinese
approach to composition.
Temple introduced the word
sharawaggi into English to describe
the asymmetrical approach of the
Chinese - but note that Chinese
scholars repudiate this attribution
completely. (the origins of the
word seem obscure)
Temple's own garden at Moor
Park, Surrey was a traditional
formal design with rectangular
enclosures of walls and hedges.
Temple had not been to China or
even seen a drawing of a Chinese
garden (See English Garden
Design by Tom Turner). Turner
thinks too much has been made of
the supposed Chinese influence.
Other writers took up the cause of
'irregular gardening' - Henry Wotton
in his Elements of Architecture
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(1624) had said 'gardens should be
irregular'
The Earl of Shaftesbury wrote 'I shall
no longer resist the passion
growing in me for things of a
natural kind'.
The Rise of Empiricism
The idea of 'nature' was in flux. To
some it meant 'essence' and could
be interpreted in a Neoplatonic
way - in which case circles,
squares etc. are the most natural
shapes that exist. Others gave it
an empirical meaning, closer to
our contemporary usage.
Turner points out that all the
garden writers of the period,
Temple, Shaftesbury, Stephen
Switzer and Alexander Pope,
regularly used 'nature' in the
Neoplatonic sense. So the switch
to empiricism wasn't an overnight
change, but more a gradual
infiltration of new ideas. The
leading thinkers of the day,
however, were empiricists,
believing that knowledge comes
not from thought but from
experience. John Locke was the
most eminent philosopher of the
period.
In the middle of the century, when
Stourhead was being laid out, and
‘Capability’ Brown was Royal
gardener at Hampton Court, there
was a balance in the minds of
designers between the regular and
the irregular. By the end of the
century the irregular had gained
complete ascendancy (but this, as
we shall see, was only temporary).
In his Epistle to
Lord Burlington,
Pope sums up al
that he thought
was wrong with
formal design :
'Grove nods at
grove, each alley
has a brother,
John Locke
(1632-1704)
And half the
platform just
reflects the other.
The suffering eye
invented nature
sees,
Trees cut to
statues, statues
thick as trees.'
GEOMETRY VERSUS
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IRREGULARITY
In 1828, Sir Henry Steuart wrote a
book called Planter's Guide which
suggested (in a footnote) that if
one couldn't afford to remodel
one's estate on Brownian lines, it
was acceptable to plant trees in
circles or ovals.
This provoked Sawrey Gilpin
(nephew of the more famous
William Gilpin) into an attack. In
Practical Hints Upon Landscape
Gardening he asks where this idea
that circles and ovals are beautiful
came from..
Are they to be traced in Claude or
Poussin? Well, of course not! Their
ancestry is actually much more
ancient - going back to Plato and
Pythagoras. Gilpin recommended
that 'the author of the Planter's
Guide should spend a day amidst
the splendid scenery of the New
Forest' in the hope that this would
cure him of the delusion that
beautiful nature favours ovals and
circles. Maybe he did, because
the offending footnote was
dropped from future editions.
POLITICAL INFLUENCES
There was an antipathy towards
things French. The absolute
monarchy in France was not
popular with the English, who had
just experienced the
Commonwealth period (16491660) under Oliver Cromwell - the
restoration of the English monarchy
had been hedged around with all
kinds of democratic safeguards.
The formal gardens at Versailles
were seen as a symbol of
autocratic power, which of course
they were.
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Alexander Pope and Joseph
Addison started to write critically
about the formal style. Most
famous is Pope's attack on topiary
which was published in a
periodical called The Guardian
(not today’s newspaper).
This included a satirical 'catalogue
of greens' which had been
provided for him by a 'Virtuoso
Gardener who has had a turn to
sculpture' . It contained such
delights as 'Adam and Eve in Year,
Adam a little shattered by the fall
of the tree of Knowledge in the
great storm; Eve and the Serpent,
very flourishing.' Also 'A pair of
giants, stunted, to be sold cheap'.
THE GENIUS OF THE PLACE
(or Genius Loci)
As we have already seen, this was
originally a Roman idea .
Shaftesbury found it in Virgil. In The
Moralists, 1709 - a ‘philosophical
rhapsody’ - two friends are
strolling in the country discussing
farming and husbandry and pretty
soon, as often happened in the
18C, they found they were
discussing nature, ethics and
aesthetics:
"Your genius, the genius of the
place and the Great Genius have
at last prevailed. I shall no longer
resist the passion in me for things of
a natural kind".
And Pope echoes the idea:
‘To build, to plant, whatever you
intend ,
To rear the column or swell the
grot,
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In all let nature never be forgot,
Consult the genius of the place in
all,
That tells the waters or to rise or
fall,
Or helps the ambitious hill the
Heavens to scale,
Or scoops in circling Theatres, the
Vale,
Calls in the country, catches
opening glades,
Joins willing woods and varies
shades from shades,
Now breaks or now directs, the
intending lines;
Paints as you plant and as you
work designs.’
Alexander Pope (Epistle to Lord
Burlington).
The important idea here is one of a
collaboration between place and
designer. Tom Turner in City as
Landscape calls the need to
consult the Genius of the Place,
the ‘Single Agreed Rule of
Landscape Architecture’. It can
be linked to all sorts of
contemporary ideas about local
distinctiveness, for example the
work of the charity Common
Ground in the UK. It also links to
contemporary architectural ideas
such as Critical Regionalism.
EARLY EXAMPLES
Two views of the
Leasowes
The Ferme Ornee, or ornamental
farm was a 17C idea. It was the
concept that a functional farm
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could also provide attractive
scenery. The idea was that the
farm could be embellished. The
best known were:
Philip Southcote's Woburn Farm (or
Wooburn), Surrey – this was 60 acre
estate, originally purchased in
1735, about a quarter of which
was developed as garden. Around
the fields and connecting temples
and garden buildings were sandwalks. Southcote described it thus:
‘all my design at first was to have
a garden on the middle high
ground and a walk all round my
farm, for convenience as well as
pleasure..’
The Leasowes (near Birmingham)
Warwickshire. Created between
1745- 1763 by its owner William
Shenstone. According to Dr.
Johnson Shenstone had made his
‘domain the envy of the great,
and the admiration of the skilful; a
place to be visited by travellers
and copied by designers.
There were modest garden
buildings, bridges and a grotto,
and throughout the garden were
inscriptions and dedications
invoking classical associations. Just
as Shenstone made his name
through this garden, so the
contemporary Scottish artist and
poet, Ian Hamilton Findlay has, in
recent years become famous
through his garden at Little Sparta,
Stonypath, Lanarkshire, which
makes similar use of classical
allusions and inscriptions.
Castle Howard, North Yorkshire is
often regarded as a turning point
in landscape design. The plan of
the grounds still has many formal
elements, but there are also some
unusual irregular asymmetrical
elements.
Castle |Howard
(South elevation)
Sir John Vanbrugh
Temple of the Four
Winds
(Vanbrugh)
Arcadia - the
idealised
landscape of
ancient Greece
and Rome.
Mausoleum
(Hawksmoor)
Castle Howard was designed by Sir
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John Vanbrugh for Lord Carlisle
and begun in 1701 (n.b. just as
Versailles was being completed).
It was not the first time that a
designer had disconnected the
house from the straight line of its
avenue approach - some Italian
gardens had already done this but it was an innovation in
England.
Vanbrugh was a designer for the
theatre as well as an architect and
in a sense the whole landscape of
Castle Howard is like a stage set.
Horace Walpole wrote:
'Nobody had informed me I should
see a palace, a town, a fortified
city, temples on high places, works
worthy of being each a metropolis
of the druids, the noblest lawn in
the world fenced by half the
horizon, and a mausoleum that
would tempt one to be buried
alive'.
It is the landscape to the east of
the house which is the most
revolutionary.
The two main buildings are the
Temple of the Four Winds
(Vanbrugh) and the Mausoleum
(Hawksmoor) - instead of being
linked by a straight avenue they
are joined by a curving ride which
skirts Henderskelf woods.
An element of mystery is
introduced here, as the
Mausoleum is partially hidden. This
landscape is also renowned for its
compositional qualities – the
manner in which objects in the
foreground, middle distance and
distance are related in views.
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English Landscape School: Five Major Figures
Sir John Vanbrugh
Soldier
Dramatist
Adventurer
Architect
Collaborator with Sir C Wren
Designed Blenheim Palace
First signs of new landscape style
Most works in old style
Charles Bridgeman
D
Transition figure
Collaborated with Vanbrugh
Reputed inventor of haha
Designer at Stowe
William Kent
Painter and scenic designer
Designer at Chiswick House
Free flowing designs contrived
Few flowers
Gravel meandering walks
Unclipped hedges
Classical temples
Bridges
Planted dead trees
Trees in clumps
like dumplings floating
in a sea of sauce
Lancelot Capability Brown
Worked under Kent
Worked at Stowe
Reshaped landforms
Lakes and rivers
Pastoral scenery
Looked good from certain points
Head gardener at Hampton Court
Planted Great Vine
Humphry Repton
Major professional figure
No special training
s sent letter to friends
Services as Landscape Gardener available
First to use title
Wrote Red Books
Featured before and after views