By Larry Malloy
The Forbidden City in Beijing has some ancient landscaping that persists and inspires some of the latest ideas in garden architecture. Within the ten meter walls and fifty-two meter moat are some of the greenest lawns fringed by ancient trees. The straight, square buildings are surrounded by cool gardens without a straight line to be seen in them.
Concubines and eunuchs surrounded the Ming and Qing emperors. Everyone else was forbidden. So much talent and skill concentrated in a square for five hundred years produced startlingly brilliant ideas and breathtaking art.
Although the buildings are laid out in perfect geometric squares the gardens are round, and just the opposite in design to the buildings. This is based on the idea that earth is square and Confucian, and heaven is Taoist, and rounded. Strangely, the combination of these two opposite notions creates a sense of harmony and tranquillity that one feels within the Imperial Palace and gardens.
Capability Brown is well known as the greatest English landscaper. Born in 1716 he started a work as a lowly gardener and worked his way up to a position where he was known throughout the country. His services were sought after by the landed gentry who vied to outdo each other in landscaping the surrounds of their stately homes. He designed and developed more than one hundred and seventy gardens, some of which continue to this day.
Garden architects in China and England alike favoured the grand vision. In China a man-made lake was dug in flat ground and the removed earth was used to make a substantial mountain beside the lake. With spades and wheel barrows Capability Brown constructed sweeping lawns, lakes, ponds and waterfalls. He was also an exponent of the ha-ha. This was a trench dug around the edge of the garden. It served to keep cattle and sheep out and at the same time created an illusion of space, suggesting that the manicured garden lawn extending into neighbouring fields and groves.
When Elizabeth Bennett, the heroine of Jane Austen's famous novel visits her lover's magnificent estate she remarks that she has never seen a place where nature and art are so happily married. In this observation she sums up an idea that is manifest in the Imperial Gardens, and in the parks and gardens of Capability Brown. It is a central idea in all landscaping.
About the Author:
Learn more about Scotts lawn care. Stop by HomeFellas where you can find lawn care tips.
No comments:
Post a Comment