Читать книгу The book of topiary - W. Jerue Gibson - Страница 5

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“Little low hedges, round like welts, with some pyramids, I like well; and in some places fair columns, upon frames of carpenters’ work.”—Bacon.

Just how far back in the history of gardens and gardening the art of Topiary was first practised there is no means of telling, but we know that gardening was first practised as a source of food supply, and that pleasure gardening did not occupy a very prominent position among the arts and sciences until civilisation had made considerable advances. Architecture had progressed in a wonderful manner and reached a high state of perfection long before horticulture assumed any great importance. To use Lord Bacon’s elegant words, “when ages grow to civility and elegancy, men come to build stately, sooner than to garden finely, as if gardening were the greater perfection.” This being so, it does not seem so very unreasonable to presume that the ancient builders of stately edifices would not in designing the surrounding gardens, plant trees and shrubs likely to mask, soften, or detract in any way from the architectural features created at so great an expenditure of time and money. They would the rather be likely to plant the more formal trees near the mansion, keeping the more graceful at a distance. The love of the formal among the Greeks may be evidenced from the writings of Theocritus, the pastoral poet of Greece, who compares the beauty of Helen to that of a Cypress. Following up this idea, a reason for keeping evergreen and other trees closely clipped is apparent. From the mere clipping of these subjects so as to keep them in harmony with the architecture, to the cutting of evergreens into fantastic shapes, is not a very wide transition, but whether the latter style was first adopted by the Grecian or the Roman gardeners does not appear.

A FARM-YARD FOWL AT COMPTON WYNYATES

A “LEATHERN BOTTEL” CUT IN BOX AT COMPTON WYNYATES

We do know, however, that the Romans practised Topiary freely and that they were also fine architects and builders. Even in the formation of sheltering groves of forest trees to provide welcome shade from the bright sunshine, the Romans adopted the formal quincunx method of disposing the trees. How much more, then, would they have been ready in that age of undeveloped taste in the design and planting of gardens to welcome a method of training and culture that enabled them not only to bring the garden up to the mansion without any resultant loss of architectural effect, but also permitted them to carry architecture into the garden and apply it in a more or less fantastic manner to the trees themselves.

On the authority of Martial we learn that the art of Topiary was first introduced to the Romans by Cneus Matius. Matius was the friend of Julius Cæsar and a particular favourite of Augustus, but whether he originated or borrowed the idea we know not. As a court favourite, however, he must have had ample opportunity for propagating this particular method of gardening, and doubtless then, as now, a fashion set at court was quickly followed by all who wished to be up-to-date. Good or bad, the taste spread, and even such a man of taste and letters as Pliny the Roman Consul considered it quite the proper thing to use Topiary work extensively in his famous Tuscan Villa. In a letter written by Pliny the Younger to his friend Apollinaris (Ep. v. 6) is a fine description of this garden. Melmoth’s translation pictures the front of the Portico as opening on to a sort of Terrace “embellished with various figures, and bounded with a Box Hedge, from which you descend by an easy slope, adorned with the representation of divers animals in Box, answering alternately to each other: this is surrounded by a walk enclosed with tonsile evergreens, shaped into a variety of forms. Behind it is the Gestatio, laid out in the form of a Circus, ornamented in the middle with Box, cut into numberless different figures, together with a plantation of shrubs prevented by the shears from running too high: the whole is fenced in by a Wall, covered with Box, rising in different ranges to the top.” After dealing with trees, roses, etc., he continues: “Having passed through these winding alleys, you enter a straight walk, which breaks out into a variety of others divided off by Box hedges. In one place you have a little meadow; in another the Box is cut into a thousand different forms; sometimes into letters expressing the name of the master; sometimes that of the artificer; whilst here and there little Obelisks rise intermixed alternately with fruit trees, when on a sudden you are surprised with an imitation of the negligent beauties of rural Nature, in the centre of which lies a spot surrounded with a knot of dwarf Plane Trees.”

It must not, however, be assumed that the Romans were entirely without appreciation of natural beauty and scenery. Far from it. But they loved lavish displays of art, and this also led them to use the gardens immediately surrounding their dwellings as a gallery in which to arrange their collections of sculptured trees. Roman poets and philosophers alike have left in their writings ample evidence that the beauties of nature were greatly admired by their countrymen, but at that period, when Rome was the mistress of the world, Italy was well supplied with natural sylvan scenery, and consequently, where it was not at all necessary to cultivate this particular form of gardening, the desire for contrast and display led to a very widespread adoption of the art of Topiary.

LEVENS GARDENS

THE BROAD WALK

From the gardens of the wealthy Romans the taste for clipped trees and general formality of design was carried throughout the Empire. Doubtless the monks who carried the arts of gardening throughout the European continent took with them and put into practice a taste for Topiary. In their wall-encircled monastic gardens dense hedges would rise both for the provision of shelter and to afford additional seclusion, and in a modest way these would in all probability be embellished by verdant sculptures.

But it was much later than this that Topiary commenced to be one of the chief features of garden design, for with the corruption of the ruling powers came the decline of the Roman Empire, and then followed the Dark Ages wherein the clash of arms, coupled with deep superstition, put gardening, as a pleasure, out of the question, so that except in some few cases it was only conducted at all because of the necessity of providing a meagre food supply. For long, long years war-like occupations were, either from choice or necessity, in the ascendant. But there presently came a time when peace again reigned and arts and commerce flourished; gardening revived, and in Italy where still remained many examples of the grandeur of Ancient Rome, it soon flourished in the establishments of the wealthy princes.

Although Charlemagne revived the art of gardening in France in the eighth century, he was not the kind of man to care much for garden display; he rather introduced useful fruits and encouraged the cultivation of herbs and fruits wholly from an economic point of view. So we are compelled by the lack of historical information to pass on to much later times ere we can again take up the tale of Topiary.

Loudon points out that the Roman style of gardening was lost in England when the Romans abandoned this country at the beginning of the fifth century, but he surmises that, following the revival of gardening in France by Charlemagne, William the Conqueror would probably re-introduce it at the end of the eleventh century. Some little progress was made in the reigns of Henry I. and Henry II., and it was the former who formed the Park at Woodstock (1123), probably the first of which there is any record. In accord with the prevailing taste, it contained a labyrinth, which appears to have chiefly constituted the Bower so intimately associated with the fate of Rosamund.

But during the twelfth century there was very little of either design or taste in the arrangement of gardens. These latter were of limited extent and, because of the feudal broils that enlivened the monotony of existence, they were for the most part attached only to the larger establishments, and in them were confined within the Glacis, or first line of defence, which was a necessity of the times. Beyond the inevitable moat, orchards arose, wherein the horticulturally inclined among the baron’s retainers could indulge their taste for ornamental gardening; a taste which consisted then, according to Johnson, and continued to a much later age, “in having plants cut into monstrous figures, labyrinths, etc.”

BOATS, PYRAMIDS AND PEACOCK

So common a part of garden design did labyrinths and mazes become at this period and during the thirteenth century, that we find scarcely a plan among the many given by De Cerceau in his “Architecture,” issued about 1250, in which either a round or a square one does not appear. This brings us into the thirteenth century, an age wherein the taste for architecture and gardening spread northwards and especially took a firm hold in Holland, where then, and later, the wealthy merchant princes liberally encouraged almost all branches of horticulture. Thus encouraged the florists entered heartily into the business of supplying their patrons, and, aided by a suitable climate and the various inventions born of necessity, they made Holland famous throughout the world for its commercial horticulture. So careful, however, were the Dutch of every inch of land, much of it reclaimed, that they laid out their gardens with mathematical precision and consequent primness, carrying this principle into the very trees and plants themselves.

It was in the early part of the fourteenth century that Pierre de Crescent, of Bologna, wrote his work on Agriculture, wherein he describes the kinds of pleasure gardens suitable for various classes of the community, and a suggestion of formality of design and the use of Topiary is made in his observation that a royal garden should contain a menagerie, and also an aviary placed among thickets, arbors and vines.