OLMSTED LEGACY

Born in Hartford, Connecticut and raised by his father, unable to attend Yale College because his eyesight had weakened due to sumac poisoning, Frederick Law Olmsted sailed off to China where he returned a year later with scurvy.  After recovering, he set out his hand at farming on Staten Island, failing miserably to profit from his land holdings.  Next he embarked for England and Wales with his brother whereupon they encountered magnificent estates, parks and rural scenery.  Such was the indication of things to come.  Most influential in his journeys were Joseph Paxton’s design for Birkenhead. Paxton sought to bring the grandeur of the aristocratic garden to the working people of Birkenhead. The park was a declaration of civic pride to nearby Liverpool and an attempt to tempt wealthy taxpayers to either build or purchase homes in Birkenhead. It is widely believed to be the first civic park in Britain, but more importantly within this context it provide the inspiration and template for Olmsted (and Calvert Vaux's) work.  Olmsted wrote ""five minutes of admiration, and a few more spent studying the manner in which art had been employed to obtain from nature so much beauty, and I was ready to admit that in democratic America there was nothing to be thought of as comparable with this People’s Garden"."

 Illustration and photograph of  Birkenhead Park

(youyesterday.com/flicker.com)

“Olmsted was much impressed with the meandering footpaths and open meadows spangled with rocks and scattered trees. He wondered how cleverly "art had been employed to obtain from nature so much beauty." And wonder of wonders, this was not just a sanctum for some noble lord but a park open to the public, a park for people of all stations in life. In all the cities of democratic America, he had to admit, there was nothing quite like it. Not yet, anyway.” National Geographic Magazine, March 2005.

Illustration of Central Park/Bethesda Terrace and fountain

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Much has been written on Olmsted’s intriguing life, including the most recent bestseller “A Clearing in the Distance” by Witold Rybczynski.  Thanks to the efforts of the Olmsted Legacy a film that was initially screened last year at select locations will now be coming to public television. The Olmsted Legacy, with its name slightly tweaked to "Olmsted and America's Urban Parks" will be aired appropriately on PBS for Earth Day, April 20^th at 10 p.m.  


Can't wait!

WILLIAM GILPIN AND THE PICTURESQUE

An aesthetic revolution that occurred in Britain in the eighteenth century revolved around several main theories, but the most important theory that applied to landscape was that of “the Picturesque”, most often associated with the writings of William Gilpin. Originally an ordained minister in the Church of England, he began writing these popular treatises as a means to raise funds for his school. 

The picturesque emphasized roughness over smoothness, boldness over elegance, and variety over uniformity. These concepts were initially influential in painting and then to landscape design. Gilpin’s defining ideas influenced friends such as Horace Walpole and the royal family, including King George.  While the wealthy could afford to indulge themselves with the Grand Tour (the traditional travel of Europe undertaken by upper-class European society), appreciating and purchasing great paintings and ultimately contracting landscape designers such as Lancelot “Capability” Brown and Humphrey Repton, Gilpin was instrumental in influencing the rising upper-middle, the minor gentry and tradesmen.  By leading tours through the countryside and publishing aquatint landscape prints he created an aristocratic taste level among the rest of the public.

anonymous engraving, Ackerman's Repository of Arts, The Strand 1809

 Edward Austen (Jane's brother) on the Grand Tour

unknown creator, the Jane Austen trust

 His concept of "the Picturesque," which first appeared in the Essay on Prints as an additional concept to "sublime" and "beautiful," was intended to formulate an appreciation for landscape in the paintings of Nicolas Poussin or Claude Lorrain.  Essay II: On Picturesque Travel is a manual for appreciating travel and sketching the landscape as a way to preserve the beauty in one’s mind.

Lorrain: The Marriage of Isaac and Rebekah, 1660

Meanwhile, Jane Austin’s novels (Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Northanger Abbey and Emma) used the picturesque as a backdrop. While a fan of her writings illuminated his concepts to a larger audience, although at time it has been suggested that she satirized him. 

Throughout each of these novels the landscape holds a defining and center-stage role.   Her heroines are brought up in well-established homes and were receptive to the matters and opinions of current taste. Her novels reflect the social and landscape history of England.  

Her novels assimilate and promote the ideals of Gilpin, yet also satirize them.  In one of Gilpin’s publications he provided instructions for the groupings of cows in a pasture – “to unite three and remove the fourth.” Many landscape painters followed suit.  But, in Pride and Prejudice, one character refuses to join in a stroll with the teasing observation, "You are charmingly group'd, and...The picturesque would be spoilt by admitting a fourth."

William Gilpin illustrations of how to group cows

 Bodelian Library

In Sense and Sensibility, one character is dismayed that another is apparently ignorant on picturesque theory and promptly instructs him… “ I shall call the hills steep, which ought to be bold; surfaces strange and uncouth, which ought to be irregular and rugged: and distant objects out of sight, which ought only to be indistinct through the sift medium of a hazy atmosphere. It unites beauty and utility – and I dare say it is a picturesque one too.”   When Elinor Dashwood teases her sister about her passion for “dead leaves” she responds by reminding Elinor that it is her appreciation of the picturesque.

 Humphrey Repton, General View of Longleat, Stapelton Collection

While Gilpin had his detractors, his picturesque ideal can be found to have far reaching influence. From travelers who sketch the landscapes they encounter to the Hudson River School of painters that depicted the romantic landscapes of the United States.

Thomas Cole (Hudson River School), The Garden of Eden 1828

wikimedia commons

HORTUS CONCLUSUS

Hortus conclusus is the archetype of an enclosed garden.  A walled garden, one with a fenced enclosure, became synonymous with the term “garden” in medieval times.  Its nomenclature, “hortus conclusus,” is believed to originate from King Solomon’s “Song of Songs” 4:12 "Hortus conclusus soror mea, sponsa, hortus conclusus, fons signatus" ("A garden enclosed is my sister, my spouse; a garden enclosed, a fountain sealed up.")

Hortus conclusus protected the private precinct from public intrusion, creating a protective barrier, in essence bringing nature within its walls. It was created out of practicality when man feared the wildness of the landscape, (animals and intruders) and chose to erect a protective barrier.

Restored peristyle from Pomeii/ 1890 photograph

www.bible-architecture.info

Roman peristyle

kmkz.com

Some scholars propose that hortus conclusus may have begun as enclosed hunting parks evolving to smaller contained areas with wattle fences for keeping livestock. Another direct influence could be attributed to the inward focused Roman peristyle or cortile. Either way, it manifested itself as walled gardens for the aristocratic class to delight in.  Within, they would have servants tend plants or create an idyllic retreat for sitting, dancing and playing instruments. Others would stroll and contemplate their faith. The only continuously existing medieval gardens today are monastic cloister gardens.

Cloisters Museum garden, Metropolitan Museum of Art

gardenvisit.com

The enclosed garden was a common setting for images of the Virgin Mary in medieval artwork.  According to Elizabeth Barlow Rogers, Landscape Design: a cultural and architectural history – “the notion of the garden as an enclosed space, set apart, and infused with metaphorical meaning – a representation of nature perfected through human art in the service of an ideal – is fundamental to our understanding of the history of landscape design.” 

 Virgin and child with saints and donor family, c1430, Cologne

 The Garden of Eden c.1410  Frankfurt

wga.hu/index.html

This genre became symbolic of impenetrability, inviolability (purity) and seclusion, a metaphor of the heavenly paradise and the Garden of Eden. As the space created is literally focused inward, it becomes a figurative expression of spirituality.

Within medieval paintings and tapestries the Virgin is typically shown in a meadow with walls or a fence encircling her, embraced by angels and saints, plant material abounds which may include the following within this setting: a rose, a lily, violets and an iris. The symbolism behind the plant material   -- violets for her modesty, the white lily for her purity and the iris is representative of David or Christ. The thornless rose itself was a medieval symbol of the Holy Virgin, the primrose was a virginal guide to paradise, primroses were known as “the key to heaven”… salvation was to be found through nature... in this case a garden. (Interestingly, the word “paradise” is derived from the Persian word “ pairideaza”, which when literally translated means “surrounded by walls.”

 Tretyakov Gallery

In the middle of a hortus conclusus, may also be found a fountain, pool, pond, or well, referencing the water of life and Mary's role in bringing life to the infant Jesus. The division of the garden into quadrants by four distinct paths – is perhaps an influence from the charhar bagh.  Occasionally a unicorn may be found within this setting, emblematic of chaste love or as an allegory representing Christ’s relationship with the Virgin Mary.


In secular terms the garden became a symbol of earthly love, typified by Guillaume de Llorris 13^th century poem the Roman de la Rose, an allegory of man and an enclosed garden. In this walled garden, the interior represents romance, while the exterior is emblematic of everyday life, the lover endeavors to reach the rose which symbolizes his lady’s love.  Relationship with the heavens is emphasized in a walled garden as it eliminates the outside world converging the garden below with the heavens above. There is a stark contrast between the containing walls and the vertical endlessness of the sky – truly a vertical landscape.

Artificial nature is the basis for the hortus conclusus - shutting the space off from the outside world, creating an image of an inner paradise. One could begin to suggest that this archetype has been translated into present day public pocket parks in urban centers. The vest pocket park in American cities is a contained space with walls created by adjacent buildings and  “protected or defended” by security guards or vendors.  Paley Park in Manhattan at 53^rd and Fifth Avenue is an excellent example of this. The fact that the park is “guarded” by the food service vendor is key to its success.


A more private example would be the jewel box size gardens behind brownstone buildings - is an oasis, a refuge of peace and tranquility among the chaos within the urban infrastructure.

The enclosed garden can be considered a paradox. To close off the outside world and bring a controlled nature within, creating an outdoor room that functions as a metaphor for nature.

Paley Park

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