The History of Modern Taste in Gardening by Horatio Walpole (1770) and the Birth of the Conception of a National Garden Style
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18688/aa188-1-8Keywords:
landscape park, Enlightenment, English art, Horatio Walpole, theory of garden artAbstract
The paper deals with the first English (and European) treatise on the progress and specific features of the landscape style, the book entitled The History of the Modern Taste in Gardening (1770) by Horatio Walpole, which was translated into Russian by the author of this article. This text is linked with the writer’s own landscape project — the garden at Strawberry Hill, as well as with the evolving theory of the landscape style represented by the poetry of Alexander Pope and William Shenstone, and Observations on Modern Gardening by Thomas Whately. Walpole in his historical survey ties the origins of the landscape style to the primeval way of life close to nature, and opposes this style to the artificiality of the gardens of the Italian and Northern Baroque, as well as French Classicism. Walpole links the major novelties of the landscape system with the inventions by William Kent and urges his compatriots to keep the middle line, avoiding uniformity (represented by Lancelot Brown), as well as fantastic exaggerations offered by the Chinese scenes by William Chambers. In the version of 1827, James Dellaway, the editor, makes his notions on the tendencies spotted by Walpole and certifies the truth of the writer’s warnings. The paper summarizes the peculiarities of the Walpole’s method and the main points of his book, still instrumental for actual garden history.
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