Sokolov, Boris M. The History of Modern Taste in Gardening by Horatio Walpole (1770) and the Birth of the Conception of a National Garden Style

Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://dx.doi.org/10.18688/aa188-1-8
Title The History of Modern Taste in Gardening by Horatio Walpole (1770) and the Birth of the Conception of a National Garden Style
Author email gardenhistory@gmail.com
About author Sokolov, Boris Mikhailovich — full doctor, professor. Russian State University for the Humanities, Moscow, Miusskaia pl., 6, 125993 Moscow, Russian Federation.
In the section Western European Art of the Modern Age DOI10.18688/aa188-1-8
Year 2018 Volume 8 Pages 89–100
Type of article RAR Index UDK 712.01 Index BBK 85.118
Abstract

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.
Keywords
Reference Sokolov, Boris M. The History of Modern Taste in Gardening by Horatio Walpole (1770) and the Birth of the Conception of a National Garden Style. Actual Problems of Theory and History of Art: Collection of articles. Vol. 8. Ed. S. V. Mal’tseva, E. Iu. Staniukovich-Denisova, A. V. Zakharova. — St. Petersburg: St. Petersburg Univ. Press, 2018, pp. 89–100. ISSN 2312-2129. http://dx.doi.org/10.18688/aa188-1-8
Publication Article language russian
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