Dmitry Shvidkovsky
Moscow Architectural Institute (State Academy), Russia
The рареr is devoted to the origin of the landscape garden in England. It gives a short account of the history of the previous kind of garden — the formal or regular one. It shows the process of the birth of new ideas in the human environment formation which leads to the creation of the new type of garden, which followed the natural forms. Several treatises of the 18th century are analyzed such as the work of John James, who translated from French “The Theory and Practice of Gardening…” by Alexander Leblond in 1712, the book of Stefan Switzer “Iconographia Rustica… Containing Directions for the General Planning of a Country House…”, 1718, Robert Castell “The Villas of the Ancients Illustrated…”, 1728; Batty Langley “New Principles of Gardening…”, 1728, as well as the activity of John James and others as practical gardeners. The work is based on primary sources and describes the period in art history, which is important for understanding the emergence of new informal features which influenced the creation of modern environment.
The influence of the philosophy of Lord Shaftsbury on the artistic theory of architecture and gardening is described: the attitude of Lord Shaftsbury towards the natural beauty as the expression of the will of God and architecture as the human invention which influenced the evolution of built environment and especially the creation of the landscape garden. In the paper different aspects of the origin of the new type of garden are analyzed. Among them: the poetry and artistic actions of Alexander Pope in his own garden, the practical measures of the famous gardener Charles Bridgman. Special attention is paid to the impact of the painter William Kent, who made several early landscape gardens, and the poet William Shenston, the author of “Unconnected Thoughts on Gardening...”, 1764, who made sentimentalism one of the foundations of the landscape garden as a new type of human environment. Then the author speaks of the highest development of the landscape garden in the works of the most famous English master “Capability” Brown and further ideas of the development of the human environment of the architects of the British classicism belonging to the generation of sir William Chambers and Charles Cameron, who introduced the dialog of Classic, Gothic and Oriental into the making of “enlightened” environment.