Page 17 - Studio International - October1973

complex and surprising arrangement of views as a Garden.' It is the strange and, for England
NATURE AS both inside and outside the garden. Certain then, novel use of the garden as a way of
looking out at landscape that is the subject of
`unnatural' features are used, like urns, statues,
termes and buildings, but these are aids to this essay7.
N
A GARDE understand the structure of the landscape, its originality, develops from the specific
I think the eventual design at Rousham, and
vantage points, resting places for contemplation,
subtle allusions, even references to other more problems facing Kent. As can be seen from the
A conceptual tour of
famous places. And, of course, the old map, the garden area inscribes an awkward
Rousham
argument, so familiar in the eighteenth century, shape and, anyway, the area available for
Simon Pugh about praising a landscape gardener for what he redesigning was very small, perhaps some
has not, rather than for what he has, done holds 25 acres, excluding the paddock, which is about
good. Kent simply points out views of natural another 5 acres. A large part of that 25 acres
landscape, rather than changing natural (perhaps about 10 acres) could not be
features into a formal arrangement. That such effectively used, including the house, the
an approach can later be criticized by Uvedale kitchen gardens and the churchyard to the
Price as giving 'the appearance of affectation west of the house, and the lawn to the south.
and studied grace that always creates disgust'3, To the north, the garden tapers away to
is as much the fault of the later fashion for nothing, bound in by Heyford Bridge and the
naturalism that provoked a reaction and a new Bicester/Chipping Norton Road, the road to
style, the picturesque, as the fault of the Steeple Aston in the east, and the winding
onlooker who can perhaps no longer see River Cherwell in the west. However, the
landscape with the freshness with which Kent garden did have a terrace along part of the river
opened it up to view. edge which afforded pleasant, but not extensive,
By the 1720s, the battle between art and views into the countryside to the west.
nature, and the supremacy of the former, The original design for the garden, probably
reached a compromise. Defoe wanted 'at a by Charles Bridgeman8 and about 1720, was
distance . . . all Nature, near at hand, all Art'4: formal in style, and had such usual features of
gardens retained their formal lines, yet the contemporary gardens as straight avenues,
surrounding landscape could be 'called into' the square ponds and the habitual Bridgemanic
garden. No doubt this owed as much to the theatre9. The woods probably had irregular
emotionalism of Shaftesbury, as to the walks winding through them, for as Switzer
Grand Tourer who was charmed by the wild insisted 'whatever lies open to View, ought to be
Alps (and feared them) on his way to Italy. regular, while, nevertheless, whatever is within
And in Italy itself, following a long tradition the Ambit of the Wood, the more irregular and
Leaping the fence and seeing all nature as a advocated in the fourteenth century by Pietro diverting it is' the better 'to follow those little
garden (as Horace Walpole described the work de' Crescenzi, most villa gardens were built on Shelvings and natural Turns and Meanders'10.
of William Kent) suggests a change in the hillsides, and therefore included dramatic Bridgeman allowed views over the Cherwell
concept of nature, and a new relationship views of surrounding countryside. Designers either from long walks beside the river or as the
between open countryside and enclosed garden. like Stephen Switzer suggested 'throwing the termination of a vista, like the view of the
Before the eighteenth century, English gardens garden open to all View of the unbounded church in open countryside seen from the
had either been enclosed by walls (as suburban Felicities of distant Prospects and the expansive `pates d'oie' at St Paul's Walden Bury, a
gardens are again now) or defined by rigid Volume of Nature herself'6. Eventually, surviving Georgian formal garden. Kent,
avenues, parterres and ponds. 'Leaping the surrounding country was to become as however, retained Bridgeman's Elm Walk, but
fence' breaks such traditions, so that as the lines important as the garden area itself: according softened the lines of the ponds and the theatre.
of the garden 'soften', the garden becomes a to Horace Walpole, Kent 'showed all Nature But apart from this, the new garden seems to
place to look out from, as well as walk within, bear no relation to the original formal design.
and cornfields, hills and woods are drawn in The garden area itself was too small and too
within its confines. Thus garden and irregular, both in shape and contour, to allow
surrounding countryside interrelate, extensive internal views of the kind Kent had
complementing each other. made famous in the Elysian Fields at Stowe. On
The development of naturalistic English the other hand, the high terrace beside the
landscape gardening is most engagingly river offered views out into the surrounding
illustrated by the redesigning, from about 1738, countryside which he could control in a series of
of Rousham Park'. One of the very few carefully constructed vantage points. Horace
near-perfect original designs of this period, Walpole considered this one of the most
the layout was probably the work of architect, brilliant features of Kent's work: 'Where the
interior-designer, painter and gardener view was less fortunate, or so exposed as to be
William Kent2 already famous for his work for beheld at once' (as was certainly the case at
the Prince of Wales at Carlton House and for Rousham) 'he blotted out some parts by thick
Lord Cobham in the Elysian Fields at Stowe. shades to divide it into variety, or to make the
Rousham is his last garden design and embodies richest scene more enchanting by reserving it to
his mature style. However, the question of the a further advance of the spectator's step'''.
authorship and dating of the garden aside, the Previously Switzer had recommended views of
highly original layout of the garden, its relation landscape across the ha-ha into 'the wide
`over the fence' with the surrounding landscape, Fields of Nature' so that 'the Sight wanders up
and the brilliant use of the limited space and down without Confinement, and is fed
available for redesigning, are illustrated in the with an infinite variety of Images, without any

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