Origins of the English Garden

The English garden was a fusion of old Italian and British classical distinction. Unlike traditional gardens, these marvels often incorporate small or large sculptures and even complete structures, such as Chinese pagodas or Roman columns. The incorporation of ancient Italian ruins and sculptures, combined with beautiful indigenous plants made the English garden an interesting and new sensation. This style was unique because it used old elements, and combined it with new, trim and neatly pruned plants. Cottage gardens also became popular and incorporated beautiful flower beds and potted plants, along with topiary and neatly trimmed hedges.

The Principles of English Garden Design

The English Garden is designed on the principle that formal and informal styles can be combined, even in a small garden. It is done by making a strong and regular framework, a formal garden structure, and then filling it with bold planting of perennial flowers, bulbs and mixed shrubs which will disguise the formal geometry of the original plan.

The framework within which this planting is done depends on the division of the garden into a number of compartments. This forms the structure of the garden. The most influential style has been the creation of hedged rooms, inside which are mixed beds planted in a quiet ‘cottage garden’ style. One of the best of these compartmented gardens is Hidcote in Gloucestershire [1]. The structure depends on interlocking axes to define the garden areas. The garden rooms are separated by several layers of hedging, but inside the hedges the planting is informal, with well-known cottage garden flowers mixing with rare plants – for the English, above all, are plant-hunters.

The alleys under pergolas, the sunken gardens, the terraces and enclosures, all of which were previously used in large gardens to display the owner’s wealth, can now be planted with a rustic simplicity. This is what is known as cottage-garden planting, a style originally English but which has been adopted on the other side of the Atlantic. It remains, in much of Britain today, the most favoured garden style.

 

The French Garden

Useful terms and phrases

7. Read the following terms and phrases, mind their pronunciation:

formal garden	сад в регулярном стиле
reached its apogee	достичь своего апогея
chateau	замок
parterres	цветник
orangerie	апельсиновый сад, оранжерея
to represent/ feature	представлять, изображать, символизировать
to enclose	огораживать
axial composition	осевая структура
severity and solemnity	строгость и торжественность
to expose on the foreground	выставлять на передний план
to supersede	заменять, вытеснять
dense fence	частый забор
wall tree	формированное дерево
to overlook	возвышаться, выходить на
terrace	веранда
to set apart	отделять, разделять, оставлять в стороне
to extend	тянуться
to face	быть обращённым в определённую сторону
elaborate	сложный
scroll	завиток
boxwood	самшит
polychrome effect	многоцветный
intermediary	промежуточная форма

 

Vocabulary Focus

8. Match the terms and phrases to their translation and make sentences about the French garden history:

to impose order over nature	копировать великих мастеров
to reach its apogee	планировка сада
grandiose creation	наводить порядок в природе
building of gardens	достичь своего апогея
to imitate great masters	грандиозное творение
remarkable creation	дворцовое торжество
brilliant scenery	по законам регулярного стиля
palace celebration	предполагать строгую соразмерность
under regular laws	выдающееся творение
to assume strict symmetry	блистательный пейзаж/обстановка
garden lay-out	создание садов

9. Match the terms and phrases to their translation and make sentences about characteristic features of the regular style:

 

straight lines	ввести в композицию
axial composition	ощущение порядка
to underline the human influence	очаровывать изобилием цветов и оттенков
to bring in a composition	изобилие скульптур
sensation of order	декоративный цветник
severity and solemnity	подчёркнуть влияние человека
abundance of sculptures	черта регулярного стиля
wide direct avenue	прямые линии
ornamental flower bed	строгость и торжественность
to bewitch by abundance of colours and shades	осевая структура
line of regular style	широкая прямая аллея

10. Match the terms and phrases to their translation and make sentences about the form of the French garden:

to expose artificiality on the foreground	власть над природой
to supersede naturalness	подниматься над цветником
parterre of the orangerie	неестественная и управляемая растительность
to overlook the garden	выставлять искусственное на передний план
to raise above the parterre	вытеснять натуральность
constrained and directed vegetation	удваивать размер дома
mastery over nature	выполнять функцию промежуточной формы
at a set height	дополнять архитектуру
To set the house apart by trimmed bushes	управлять водой
to complement the architecture	определённой высоты
to resemble the patterns of a carpet	отделять дом при помощи стриженых кустов
to serve as an intermediary	возвышаться над садом
to double the size of the house	цветник оранжереи
to move water	напоминать ковровый узор

Reading

11. Read the text and find answers to the following questions:

1. What is the basic principle of the French formal garden?

2. When did it reach its height?

3. What were Andre Lenotr achievements in park art?

4. What were the laws of the regular style?

5. What did the style assert?

6. What are the main principles of the French garden?

The French Garden

The French formal garden is a style of garden based on symmetry and the principle of imposing order over nature. It reached its apogee in the 17th century with the creation of the Gardens of Versailles[2], designed for Louis XIV by the landscape architect André Le Nôtre. The style was widely copied by other courts of Europe.

Regular Style

The epoch of French classicism in park art was marked by grandiose creations of Andre Lenotr. Before this great master the building of gardens was imitated to Italians. After creating such remarkable creations like parks Tuileries[3], the Marlie[4], Saint-Claud [5]and especially Versailles all world has started to imitate his ideas. The ensembles of Lenotr created fine conditions of palace residences, brilliant scenery for palace celebrations. The architecture of his parks developed under regular laws, the laws of regular style. The regular kind assumes strict symmetry in a garden lay-out. They are characterized by straight lines, and strict axial composition. And now it is used where it is necessary to underline the human influence on nature, to bring in a composition the sensation of order, severity and solemnity. The emotional feature of the style – is elation, solemnity, the abundance of sculptures, theatricality.

The regular kind is magnificent with its wide direct avenues, cut trees, ornamental flower beds on a lawn, bewitching by abundance of colours and shades. As A.E. Regel wrote, the most important line of regular style consists in, that «artificiality not only was exposed on the foreground, but necessarily superseded any naturalness. The garden formed the Parterres of the Orangerie of the Château of Versailles isolated world by high walls or a dense fence». And such type of order was considered extremely desirable and universal. Such point of view is supported with that fact that people feel pleasure at sensation of order. They assert that basically they give preference to order, rather than chaos, symmetry, rather than by asymmetry. Water was an important element of a regular garden: the strict form pools with fountains, cascades, wall fountains and with sharply contrasted bosquets – exactly cut in the form of wall trees and bushes. Skilful palace gardeners used them for creation in a garden a whole system of small "halls" and "offices", placing them along paths. Jacques Boyceau de La Barauderie wrote in 1638 that "the principal reason for the existence of a garden is the esthetic pleasure which it gives to the spectator."

The form of the French garden was strongly influenced by the Italian gardens of the Renaissance, and was largely fixed by the middle of the 17th century. It had the following elements, which became typical of the formal French garden:

§ A geometric plan using the most recent discoveries of perspective and optics.

§ A terrace overlooking the garden, allowing the visitor to see all at once the entire garden. As the French landscape architect Olivier de Serres wrote in 1600, "It is desirable that the gardens should be seen from above, either from the walls, or from terraces raised above the parterres.

§ All vegetation is constrained and directed, to demonstrate the mastery of man over nature. Trees are planted in straight lines, and carefully trimmed, and their tops are trimmed at a set height.

§ The residence serves as the central point of the garden, and its central ornament. No trees are planted close to the house; rather, the house is set apart by low parterres and trimmed bushes.

§ A central axis, or perspective, is perpendicular to the facade of the house, on the side opposite the front entrance. The axis extends either all the way to the horizon or to piece of statuary or architecture. The axis faces either South or east-west. The principle axis is composed of a lawn, or a basin of water, bordered by trees. The principle axis is crossed by one or more perpendicular perspectives and alleys.

§ The most elaborate parterres, or planting beds, in the shape of squares, ovals, circles or scrolls, are placed in a regular and geometric order close to the house, to complement the architecture and to be seen from above from the reception rooms of the house.

§ The parterres near the residence are filled with broderies[6], designs created with low boxwood to resemble the patterns of a carpet, and given a polychrome effect by plantings of flowers, or by colored brick, gravel or sand.

§ Farther from the house, the broderies are replaced with simpler parterres, filled with grass, and often containing fountains or basins of water. Beyond these, small carefully-created groves of trees, serve as an intermediary between the formal garden and the masses of trees of the park. "The perfect place for a stroll, these spaces present alleys, stars, circles, theaters of greenery[7], galleries, spaces for balls and for festivities."

§ Bodies of water (canals, basins) serve as mirrors, doubling the size of the house or the trees.

§ The garden is animated with pieces of sculpture, usually on mythological themes, underline the perspectives, and mark the intersections of the axes, and by moving water in the form of cascades and fountains.

 

Chinese Garden