(hev)+Exhibition


 * Heveningham Hall Exhibition Data**

//Megasthenes-Greek traveller to India circa 300 BC//

Tame peacocks and pheasants are kept and they (live) in the cultivated shrubs to which the royal gardeners pay due attention. Moreover there are shady groves and herbage growing among them, and the boughs are interwoven by the woodmans art .... The actual trees are of the evergreen type, and their leaves never grow old and fall: same of them are indigenous, others have been imported from abroad.

//John Evelyn - 17th November 1644//

I walked to Villa Burghesi .... This garden abounded with all sorts of the most delicious fruit and exotique simples; Fountains of sundry inventions, Groves, & small Rivulets of Water; There is also adjoining to it a Vivarium for Estriges, Peacocks, Swanns, Cranes etc; and divers strange Beasts, Deare & Hares: .... The Groves are of Cypress and Lawrell Pine, Myrtil, Olive etc. The 4 Sphinxes are very Antique and worthy observation: To this is a Volary full of curious birds.

//Timothy Nourse 1700 Design for a garden//

In a word let this Third Region or Wilderness by Natural-Artificial; that is, let all things be dispos'd with that cunning, as to deceive us into a belief of a real Wilderness or Thicket, and yet to be furnished with all the Varieties of Nature; And at the upper end of this Wilderness, let there be a Grate-Gate, answering the entrance to the Garden; beyond which, and without the Territory of our Garden,let there be planted Walkes of Trees to adorn the Landskip; likewise a Bowling Green and Poddock would be suitable to this higher-ground; and thus at length the Prospect may terminate on Mountains, Woods or such Views as the Scituation will admit of.

//Roger de Biles 1708 Principles of Painting//

Among the many different styles of landskip, I shall confine myself to two; the heroick, and the pastoral or rural; for all other sytles are but mixtures of these.

The heroick style is a composition of objects, which, in their kinds, draw both from art and nature, everything that is great and extraordinary in either.

The only buildings, are temples, pyramids, antient places of burial, altars consecrated to the divinities, pleasure houses of regular architecture. And if nature appear not there, as we everyday casually see her, she is at least represented as we think she ought to be.

//Anthony Ashley Cooper 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury 1709 The Moralist//

Ye Fields and Woods, my Refuge from the toilsom World of Business, receive me in your quiet Sanctuarys, and favour my Retreat and thoughtful Solitude - Ye Verdant Plains, how gladly I salute ye ! Hail all ye blissful Mansions! Seats! Delightful Prospects! Majestick Beautys of this Earth, and all ye Rural Powers and Graces.

//Joseph Addison 1712 The Spectator//

... our English Gardens are not so entertaining to the Fancy as are those in France and Italy, where we see a large Extent of Ground covered over with an agreeable mixture of Garden and Forest, which represent every where an artificial Rudeness, much more charming than that which we meet with in our own Country ... why may not a whole estate be thrown into a kind of Garden by frequent Plantations, that may turn as much towards the profit, as the Pleasure of the Owner? A Marsh over grown with Willows or a Mountain shaded with Oaks, are not only more beautiful but more benificial, than when they lie bare and unadorned. Fields of Corn make a pleasant Prospect, and if the Walks were a little taken care of that lie between them, if the natural Embroidery of the Meadows, were help't and improved by some small Additions of Art, and the several Rows of Hedges set off by Trees and Flowers, that the Soil was capable of receiving, a man might make a pretty Lanskip of his own Possessions.

//Stephen Switzer Ichonographia Rustica 1718 and 1742//

Why should we esteem nothing but large regular Walks, the only Characteristicks of a noble Seat ? But for diversity, should not rather mix therewith Serpentine Meanders; and instead of levelling Hills or filling up Dales, should think it more entertaining to be sometimes on the Precipice of a Hill viewing all a round and under us, and at other times in a Bottom, viewing those goodly Hills and Theatres of Wood and Corn that are above us... And if we have not such by Nature, to create them by Art, by digging a Hole in one place, to make a Hill in another; and so to make the most level country (which of all others is the least beautiful) as delightful as that Nature throws in our way, or Art can weave. .

//Sir John Clerk of Penicuik The Country Seat 1731//

And where uncommon moisture steeps the ground Convert the place into a Lake or Pond. If any opening gives a Prospect round Of distant Fields there place a Seat or Bowr Which may defend from Heat and sudden Rain And heighten into Transports all your Views. If spacious plains shall intersect a Wood Let there your Flocks and nimble Deer be fed, The milky Kine, or Beeves, or gen'rous Steeds; Thus while we wander thro' the mazy Ground Surprising objects will regale our View, And rural Bliss in full Perfection Show.

//Alexander Pope An Epistle to Lord Burlington 1731//

To build, to plant, whatever you intend, To rear the Column, orr the Arch to bend, To swell the Terras, or to sink the Grot; In all,let Nature never be forgot Consult the Genius of the Place in all, That tells the waters to rise or fall, Or helps th' ambitious Hill the Heav'ns to scale, Or scoops in circling Theatres the Vale, Calls in the Country, catches opening Glades, Joins willing Woods and varies Shades from Shades, Now breakes, or now directs, the intending Lines ; Paints as you plant, and as you work Designs.

//1745: John Serle, plan of Pope's garden at Twickenham//

//William Chambers Designs of Chinese Buildings, Furniture, Dresses Machines and Utensils 1757//

As the Chinese are not found of walking, we seldom meet with avenues or spacious walks, as in our European plantations: the whole ground is laid out in a variety of scenes, and you are led by winding passages cut in the groves to the variety of points of view, each of which is marked by a seat a building or some other object.

//Anon 1767 on Browns landscapes//

At Blenheim, Crome, and Caversham we trace Salvators Wilderness, Clauds enlivening grace Cascades and Lakes as fine as Risdale drew While Natures vary'd in each charming view To paint his works would Poussins Powers require, Miltons sublimity, and Drydems fire: Born to grace Nature, and her works complete, With all that's beautiful, sublime and great, For him each Muse enwreathes the Lawrel Crown, And consecrates to fame immortal Brown. 1758: Richard Wilson, Croom Court Wilts.

//Horace Walpole The History of the Modern Taste in Gardening 1771//

I call a sunk fence the leading step, for these reasons. No sooner was this simple enchantment made, than levelling, mowing and rolling followed The contiguous ground of the park without the sunk fence was to be harmonized with the lawn within • • •

At that moment appeared Kent, painter enough to taste the charms of landscape bold enough and opinionated enough to dare and to dictate.

He leaped the fence and saw that all nature was a garden. Still in some lights the reformation seems to me to have been pushed too far - the total banishment of all particular neatness immediately about a house, which is frequently left gazing by itself in the middle of a park,is a defect.

Palladianism

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