On principles of
composition, therefore, the regular disposition of decorative foliage is
right, when such foliage is mixed with architecture; but it requires
great taste, and long study, to design this disposition properly. Trees
of dark leaf and little color should be invariably used, for they are to
be considered, it must be remembered, rather as free touches of shade
than as trees.
110. Take, for instance, the most simple bit of design, such as a hollow
balustrade, and suppose that it is found to look cold or raw, when
executed, and to want depth. Then put small pots, with any dark shrub,
the darker the better, at fixed places behind them, at the same distance
as the balustrades, or between every two or three, and keep them cut
down to a certain height, and we have immediate depth and increased
ease, with undiminished symmetry. But the great difficulty is to keep
the thing within proper limits, since too much of it will lead to
paltriness, as is the case in a slight degree in Isola Bella, on Lago
Maggiore; and not to let it run into small details: for, be it
remembered, that it is only in the majesty of art, in its large and
general effects, that this regularity is allowable; nothing but variety
should be studied in detail, and therefore there can be no barbarism
greater than the lozenge borders and beds of the French garden.
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