Practical Hints Upon Landscape Gardening: With Some Remarks on Domestic Architecture as Connected with SceneryT. Cadell, 1835 - 235 pages William Sawrey Gilpin (1761/2-1843), landscape painter and illustrator, later became a landscape gardener and writer. He set himself up as a drawing master in Paddington Green and also illustrated picturesque travel-writing. Between 1804 and 1806 he was the first president of the Society of Painters in Water Colours, and then the third drawing master at the Royal Military College in Marlow. After being discharged from this post, Gilpin became a successful landscape gardener and advisor to the nobility. His approach to landscape gardening was influenced by painting and Sir Uvedale Price's Essay on the Picturesque (1794). Gilpin's Hints, published in 1832, advocates that landscapes should be improved by the 'taste' of a painter's eye, and artificial buildings united with their surroundings. Like his landscape practice, this book was highly regarded by Gilpin's contemporaries for its emphasis on the picturesque, especially when landscape gardening centred upon the introduction of exotic plants. |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
accompaniments admit afford appear applied approach bank beauty broken building character circle circumstances clumps colour common composition conceive connected considered decoration desirable direction distance distinct dress easy effect embellishments entrance equally essential example exist extent fence flat flowers foreground formal former frequently garden give given ground groups Guide hand harmony head height idea immediate improvement instances interesting irregular islands lake landscape latter lawn less light mansion marked masses means nature necessary never object observations occasionally opinion outline oval park perhaps picturesque plantations planted pleasing prefer present principle produce recommend regular removal require rich river says scene scenery Scotch fir seen separation shape shrubs side situation stands suggest surface taste terrace tion trees unite varied variety various village walk wall whole wood
Popular passages
Page 32 - Hope's deluding glass; As yon summits soft and fair, Clad in colours of the air Which to those who journey near Barren, brown and rough appear: Still we tread the same coarse way; The present's still a cloudy day.
Page 32 - As pearls upon an ^Ethiop's arm. See, on the mountain's southern side, Where the prospect opens wide, Where the evening gilds the tide, How close and small the hedges lie! What streaks of meadows cross the eye! A step, methinks, may pass the stream, So little distant dangers seem; 120 So we mistake the future's face, Eyed thro...
Page 124 - ... the first requisite is irregularity. That a mixture of trees and underwood should form a long straight line can never be natural, and a succession of easy sweeps and gentle rounds, each a portion of a greater or less circle, composing altogether a line literally serpentine, is, if possible, worse : it is but a number of regularities put together in a disorderly manner, and equally distant from the beautiful, both of art and of nature. The true beauty of an outline consists more in breaks than...
Page 192 - Its stem would have taken an easy sweep, and its lateral branches, which naturally grow with as much beautiful irregularity as those of deciduous trees, would have hung loosely and negligently ; and the more so, as there is something peculiarly light and feathery in its foliage. I mean not to assert that every Scotch fir, though in a natural state, would possess these beauties, but it would at least have the chance of other trees ; and I have seen it, though indeed but rarely, in such a state as...
Page 191 - ... of its growth, are formal ; and yet I have sometimes seen a good contrast produced between its spiry points and the round-headed oaks and elms in its neighbourhood. When I speak, however, of the Scotch fir as a beautiful individual, I conceive it when it has outgrown all the improprieties of its youth; when it has completed its full age, and when, like Ezekiel's cedar, it has formed its head among the thick branches. I may be singular in my attachment to the Scotch fir. I know it has many enemies;...
Page 138 - what " the higher artists have done, both in " their pictures and drawings...
Page 40 - I so condemn in others — destroyed an old-fashioned garden. It was not, indeed, in the high style of those I have described, but it had many circumstances of a similar kind and effect. As I have long since perceived the advantage which I could have made of them, and how much I could have added to that effect — how well I could in parts have mixed the modern style, and have altered and concealed many of the stiff and glaring formalities — I have long regretted its destruction. I destroyed it,...
Page 125 - ... full of variety in their outlines ; and from the same causes, no two groups are exactly alike. But clumps, from the trees being generally of the same age and growth, from their being planted nearly at the same distance in a circular form, and from each tree being equally...
Page 127 - With leaden eye that loves the ground ;' " and are so continually occupied with turns " and sweeps, and manoeuvring stakes, that " they never gain an idea of the first prin" ciples of composition. " Such a mechanical system of operations " little deserves the name of an art. There " are, indeed, certain words in all languages " that have a good and a bad sense ; such as " simplicity and simple, art and artful, which " as often express our contempt as our
Page 193 - At firft appearance, this would readily denote two diftinft fpecies, but I am convinced that all the trees in Scotland, under the denomination of Scotch fir, are the...
Bibliographic information
| Title | Practical Hints Upon Landscape Gardening: With Some Remarks on Domestic Architecture as Connected with Scenery Collections spéciales Nineteenth Century Collections Online: Science, Technology, and Medicine: 1780-1925, Part II |
| Author | William Sawrey Gilpin |
| Edition | 2 |
| Publisher | T. Cadell, 1835 |
| Length | 235 pages |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |