A earlier today I posted my admiration for 'Capability' Brown and informed of a blog dedicated to him.
Now I see that there is already comment and discussions about Brown, his legacy and his forthcoming tercentenary.
Informed debate is a good thing, so please use this arena or the GHS Comments page to pass on your educated opinions and thoughts....
Bravo! I'll bet the debate will be very lively indeed! I must confess to being on the pre-Brownian side of landscape design preference since that's where my studies have taken me. I rather like it there, so in that context poor Brown gets the hard knocks since there aren't any gardens of that period left for me to see.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, I think it's unfair to place the blame solely on Brown for the disappearance of the Renaissance gardens of England. They were representative of a style preferred by a French absolutist monarchy (Louis XIV) and England had reached a time of throwing off the influence of the French and seeking its own identity. And absolutism had led England to Civil War, after all. The changes to gardens in the early 18th century were fueled as much by politics as they were by popular fashion, a trend which had begun when Brown was still an infant.
Poor 'Cap. He gave his clients what they wanted but what historians don't immediately recognize is how fickle clients can be.