stowe gardens

In my art history classes I learned about the English landscape architect; William Kent. I only saw this photo in my art history book; E.H. Gombrich: The Story of Art, 1950, and since then I have grown a greater interest in nature and colors that come and go each season. My favorite season is autumn. Strange what a photo can do to you...

Stowe gardens in England was softened by the landscape architect (who at the time would have more likely referred to himself as a “gardener”) William Kent, who’s naturalistic style made up for his lack of technical skill. He preferred to create “stories” with the landscape, by strategically placing garden follies as a way to direct the gaze, while still allowing the individual to travel through the garden on a path of their choosing. In his essays On Modern Gardening, Horace Walpole wrote of Kent that he was “painter enough to taste the landscape…[who] leaped the fence and saw that all nature was a garden.”
Some popular techniques Kent employed included designing the layout like a Japanese stroll garden, so that a sequence of views is revealed only as the visitor moves along. He also utilized Ha Ha’s as a way of keeping the cows out of the flowerbeds while maintaining the illusion of a continuous landscape.

One day I will go and see the Stowe gardens in the fall!