Capability Brown: Designing English Landscape by John Phibbs and Joe Cornish

Capability Brown: Designing the English Landscape by John Phibbs and Joe Cornish

I found this at the library this week. First, I was attracted by the cover. I mean, right? Then, I was enchanted by the subject's name: Capability. I remembered hearing about him in various places over the years, but I really didn't know much. So I snagged the book and took it home.

I started out reading every word, but then I decided I really just wanted to look at the pictures. Even then it took me a couple of days to get through it. I read the captions for all the pictures and just got lost in the pictures. It's so interesting how important it was for these people to have landscape that encapsulated the "picturesque". I can't imagine that the landscape before Brown's intervention would not have been picturesque in my eyes, but their definition was extremely exact. These days, I'm happy if my grass is lower than required by the neighborhood association.

I really enjoyed this one, and I'm now going to look for books on English Manor Houses, because what I really want is to see inside.

7 bookmarks.