Temple Theaters Presents
ARCADIA
By Tom Stoppard
February 11-21, 2015
Lancelot "Capability" Brown
A celebrity landscaper might seem like the most English thing ever, but then again, the English do love their gardens. In the course of his thirty-plus year career, Lancelot "Capability" Brown transformed the landscape of Great Britain, designing over 170 parks in his trademark elegantly natural style. Many of these parks still stand today as a testament to Brown's influence, despite a backlash against his orderly style during the Romantic period.
Early Life
Details about Capability's early life are sparse. The exact date of his birth is unknown; only that of his baptism, on August 30, 1716 in Kirkhale, Northumberland, was recorded. His father, William Brown, was a yeoman farmer (a step below landed gentry in the British class system). Capability was educated at a village school, and served as a gardner's boy at Kirkhale Hall, the country home of Sir William Loraine. It was here that he developed his passion for landscape design, and mastered the principles of the craft. He began to accept his own commissions around 1739, creating a new lake in the park at Kiddington Hall, Oxfordshire, but it wasn't until he joined the gardening staff at Stowe, Buckinghamshire, serving under William Kent, at the time the leading landscape architect in England, that his career really began to flourish.
Career and Influence
During the 17th and early 18th century, landscaping the England was dominated by formality and geometry. Plants, fountains, walkways and other features were laid out with mathematical precision and groomed to perfection, in a style heavily influenced by Italian and French design. The gardens at Versailles, in France, are an excellent example of this style of landscape architecture:
However, by the mid-18th century, landscape architects like William Kent and Capability Brown were beginning to reject the stiff formality of these types of gardens. They envisioned a more natural, unstructured style inspired by the naturally-occurring elements of the landscape, rather than imposing a specific design. In fact, Capability acquired his unusual nickname from his habit of telling his clients that their properties had great "capabilities" in what was already there. Rather than replace the features that were already there, Capability sought to refine and enhance them. Some contemporaries criticized this apparent lack of design; the architect Sir William Chambers compared grounds designed by Capability to "common fields, so closely is nature copied in them."
As described in the Encyclopedia Brittanica, "The means that Brown used were natural: he employed neither carved stone nor architectural shapes but limited himself to turf; mirrors of still water; a few species of trees used singly, in clumps, or in loose belts; and the undulations of the ground. With these he made simple harmonious patterns without obvious symmetry." (This description of Capability's style aligns quite well with Lady Croom's description of Sidley Park's landscape on page 16 of Arcadia.) Following Kent's lead, Capability created gardens in this minimalist, pastoral style at some of the finest country houses and estates in Great Britain, including Blenheim Palace (the principle residence of the dukes of Marlborough); Warwick Castle (built in 1068 by William the Conquerer); Cardiff Castle in Wales; and Wimbledon Park on London.
In addition to being an innovative designer, it seems that Capability was also a savvy businessman. According to CapabilityBrown.org, the website dedicated to his life and work, "Brown offered a number of different services to his clients: for a round number of guineas, he could provide a survey and plans for buildings and landscape, and leave his client to execute his proposal; more frequently he provided a foreman to oversee the work, which would be carried out by labour recruited from the estate - even in 1753, when he opened his account with Drummond's Bank, Brown was employing four foremen and by the end of the decade he had over twenty on his books. Finally he could oversee and refine the work himself, usually by means of visits for a certain number of days each year." Capability also practiced structrual architecture on occasion, notably Croome Court (no relation to the Crooms of Arcadia) in Worcestshire.
In the 1760s, Capability took on the post of head gardener at Hampton Court Palace, a former residence of King Henry VIII; he maintained his private business as well, working up until his sudden death in 1783.
As we see in Arcadia, in the years following Capability's death, there was something of a backlash against his style, in no small part due to the emergence of the Romantic aesthetic in all aspects of design. The unruly, emotionally-driven aesthetic of the Romantic period was indeed a departure from Capability's placid designs. However, Capability's influence remains, not only in England, but anywhere in the world where a simple, natural style is employed. As recently as 2013, Gorky Park in Moscow was redesigned by a British firm in the style of Capability Brown.
Sources/Further Reading:
Encyclopedia Brittanica Biography
Photos: Wikipedia Commons
Badminton House, Gloucestershire, England
Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire
Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire
Badminton House, Gloucestershire, England