Last week, we talked about how the French Renaissance influenced our preference on landscapes aesthetics today. This week, we’ll be looking at another huge influencer of our modern landscapes: the English Landscape School.
In order to understand why the English Landscape School was born, we must look at the historical context. This was around the time Henry the VIII separated from the Roman Catholic church to create the English Church. In doing this, he confiscated a lot of land and created the “landed gentry“, a social class that is defined by land ownership. These people were upper-middle class who would have found the offered financial incentive appealing. This influx of new settlers stripped the land of trees and vegetation, leaving a rather grey, barren, and ugly landscape.
Poets, painters, and philosophers began placing emphasis on picturesque landscapes, using nature as a prime source of inspiration and focus for their work. This caused a shift in the attitude towards nature: people started to respect nature, even if it’s aesthetic is influenced or manipulated my humans.
The biggest characteristic of the English Landscape School is it’s preference for “idealized” landscapes–where picturesque landscapes are seemingly natural but were engineered by humans–vs. humanized landscapes wherein human interference is obvious. The results were vast voids of green carpet, rolling hills, and paths that created a sense of longing by not allowing people to directly walk into the beautiful landscape they saw.
One of the most prominent figures of the English Landscape School is Capability Brown (his birth-given name is Lancelot). He has done so many projects that he is practically the face of the English Landscape School; and his works, the face of England’s countrysides. His signature features include winding bodies of water, (fake) ancient ruins or monuments, ha-ha ditches, clusters of trees, and big open lawns. Again, the idea was that the landscape would look as natural as possible, but would be tailored to enhance human experience.
Because Brown has transformed close to two hundred landscapes, his style spread throughout the country. With this came the widening of canals and roads, which promoted international growth, trade, and globalization. His distinctive style is seen in English literature as well. Some of his works are sets for Downtown Abbey and Jane Austen’s Pride and Predjudice. Generally speaking, his unique approach to nature has inspired modern designers to think in similar ways. The ideology of the idealized nature aesthetic and simplicity and elegance of designs has been replicated and emulated in designs across the country and even internationally.