Mariana Griswold Van Rensselaer's Landscape Gardening Manifesto in Garden and Forest

Abstract

In 1888, Mariana Griswold Van Rensselaer (1851–1934) brought her knowledge of the fine arts to bear on the subject of landscape gardening for Garden and Forest. The result was a concise manifesto for late nineteenth-century America. Van Rensselaer was already a well-known critic of art and architecture, and in her seven-part series for the new weekly journal, she outlined the principles of landscape gardening as a sister fine art. In this era of conscious professionalism, her essays were essential reading for practitioners as well as for a public wanting to judge, for their own delight and appreciation, the art of landscape gardening as a profession. Her audience included aspiring professionals, clients, gardeners, and public and private users of designed landscapes. Van Rensselaer drew on established theories and nascent practices of landscape architecture, but insisted on retaining the name “landscape gardening.” The ideas of the renowned practitioner Frederick Law Olmsted were evident—but not wholly intact. One of her goals was to educate those she classified as “capable amateurs”—to educate Americans to recognize the creative genius of artists like Olmsted. Van Rensselaer's manifesto addressed issues such as artistic self-expression, the “idealism” favored by Van Rensselaer (as opposed to “realism”), organized beauty, and composition—with an emphasis on the harmonious arrangement of contrasting forms and contrasting colors, This paper analyzes these topics in the Garden and Forest essays for how they defined the emerging profession for the public.