Landscape Design As A Fine Art

Landscape design may be regarded as the art of choosing wisely between any practical alternatives which present themselves to us in dealing with land and the objects upon it, with a view to securing greater enjoyment from the appearance of our outdoor surroundings. It is applicable not alone where the purpose is primarily to give enjoyment, as in the flower garden, the lawn, or the park: but also where the primary purpose is utility, as in the vegetable garden, the farm and the industrial plant, and in the placing in designed relation to their surroundings of buildings, roads, streets, railroads, and the countless elements which make up our outdoor environment in city, village, and country.

It merges into many branches of engineering and the economic arts in the sense that it deals with the same subjects; dealing with them, however, from the standpoint of outdoor beauty; just as architecture merges into engineering though holding fast to the standpoint of beauty in building. As a fine art landscape architecture merges into architecture; but is centered primarily on a different class of mechanical and artistic problems from those of architecture; dealing with unroofed spaces, often of great horizontal extent in proportion to the vertical dimensions; and dealing far more than architecture with elements which change through the years, like growing vegetation, always in accordance with orderly laws, but laws too complex to permit of mechanically exact prediction.

— Frederick Law Olmsted

Man And The Landscape - No one but a prisoner in a windowless house can escape being influenced by the beauty or ugliness of his outdoor surroundings.
Man's Influence Over Landscape - The appearance of the land and the objects upon it generally results from the control which man himself exerts over the materials and forces of nature just as truly and as completely as the sculptor controls the appearance of the natural stone which he shapes.
Appreciation of Landscape Beauty - Rules, recipes, and arbitrary preconceptions, like that landscape slogan, reflecting a half-truth, "Avoid straight lines," are the resort of the lazy and the superficial in matters of landscape as in all branches of art.
Landscape Design As A Fine Art - Landscape design may be regarded as the art of choosing wisely between any practical alternatives which present themselves to us in dealing with land and the objects upon it.
Qualities Peculiar to Landscape Compositions - The creations of landscape architecture — namely landscapes — are made by altering, adapting, or perfecting real landscapes existing in advance as such, much as an architect alters an old building to adapt it to new uses while respectfully conserving its fine qualities.
Importance of Utilizing Qualities Making for Unity - Since without unity there is no beauty but only distraction, it becomes peculiarly important to note other inherent qualities making for unity in landscapes.
Humanized Mode in Landscape Design - The older, simpler, and more direct mode, the "humanized" mode, frankly appeals, as do most works of art, to the deep-rooted human pleasure in exhibitions of the skill and power of man, and in evidences of man's control over nature.
Naturalistic Mode in Landscape Design - A simple example of the naturalistic is found in the treatment of a trail through a mountain wilderness, where the mere removal of obstructing vegetation may open beautiful landscapes.
Historic Styles in Landscape Design - Several designs in the "grand manner," which extended influence over Europe, even into Russia, and were often carried to extremes by incompetent designers, invited, as we have seen, a reaction towards the naturalistic mode.

Landscape Design As A Fine Art

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