Existing comment:
George Washington's Landscape Design:
"The whole plantation, the garden, and the rest proved well that a man born with natural taste may guess a beauty without having seen the model. The General has never left America... but it seems as if he had copied the best samples of the grand old homesteads of England."
-- Julian Niemcewicz, a Polish guest at Mount Vernon, June 1798.
Mount Vernon's gardens and grounds were a masterful mix of formal and naturalistic design styles originating in England. In this transitional form, Washington borrowed strict symmetry and simple geometric lines from the earlier school while taking advantage of the natural beauty of the American landscape. This is an overall order to the wilderness areas, vistas, groves, and curving walkways that reflects Washington's sense of balance and design. |