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As promised, we will be adding new material to our landscaping and gardening blog. We will start with the first part of lesson one from a book on landscaping. Wherever you see the term “landscape gardening” simply think in terms of landscaping.

LESSON 1
INTRODUCTION

The purpose of this lesson is to define certain elementary terms and present certain general principles necessary to an understanding of subsequent lessons.

Definition

Landscape gardening (called also landscape architecture, landscape engineering or landscape design) is the art of improving land for human use and enjoyment in such a manner as to combine the maximum of utility with the maximum of beauty.

Art

In this definition the term art signifies fine art in distinction from the practical arts or handcrafts. The definition implies that landscape gardening is a sister art with painting, sculpture, architecture and music. There are, in fact, may points of close resemblance amongst all these arts.

Art is the pursuit of beauty. The effort to realize beauty in any medium is art. Sweet sounds harmoniously combined constitute music; beautiful or noble ideas beautifully expressed in metrical language are poetry; beautiful forms and colors pleasingly united on canvas are painting; beautiful trees, hills and water arranged to make an attractive picture are landscape gardening. Beauty is the end of art.

Every work of art must be pleasing to the senses. Music pleases the ear; good landscaping pleases the eye. This element of sensuous pleasure is essential. It has sometimes been argued that art must satisfy the intelligence; also that it must satisfy the moral judgment. Neither statement is true. Art is independent of logic and of morals, though either one may be brought in at times to the manifest advantage of art.
Art is to be understood as distinguished from science. ” Science is classified knowledge.” Art is the pursuit of beauty. Science seeks to know the truth, to defend the truth and to overthrow what is false. Art strives only to know what is beautiful, to defend the beautiful, and to rid the world of everything ugly.

The Field

Landscape gardening has for its field of operations” all outdoors” in a quite literal sense. Some of the main purposes, however, are the following:

1. To improve home grounds in order that the exterior of every home shall be clean, orderly and beautiful.
2. To improve public grounds in the same way and for the same reasons. This branch of landscape gardening is called Civic Art (see Lessons 37-48).
3. To select, protect, and make accessible the best examples and types of the native landscape, as is done in National and State parks (see Lessons 5(M}2).
4. To interpret the beauty of the landscape.

So ends part one of lesson one of our book on landscaping and making beautiful “all outdoors”. The language of our landscaping book may be a bit more formal than most of us are used to today, but the lessons of this book still apply to the art and skill of landscaping. We hope you enjoy this new series.