Each stylistic trend in landscape design has basic, only inherent features that cannot be confused with any others. Seeing, for example, regular geometric shapes in a garden or park, you can be sure that you are looking at a regular garden.
However, geometric shapes are not the only criterion for regularity. What should be a real regular garden, what are its typical features - let's take a look.
First, a little history
The regular park is also called geometric, formal and French. Well, geometric is clear why, formal - from the word form. And they call it French, because it reached its highest popularity in France in the 17th-18th centuries (the Baroque era). The most striking example is the beautiful park of Versailles, which was created by landscape architect André Le Nôtre for Louis XIV.
France has always been a trendsetter. If something has become fashionable in France, it means that soon it will become fashionable all over the world. So it happened with regular gardens - other European countries quickly adopted the new style of landscape art.
This is where the name French park comes from. However, from a historical point of view, it is incorrect. Because initially a regular trend was formed in Italy during the Renaissance.
What does the word regular mean?
In general, regularity is a synonym for orderliness, structure, correctness. Most likely, the emergence of a regular style was facilitated by the eternal human desire to control nature, to subjugate it to oneself. And such parks are a kind of way to realize your desire, to streamline nature. Indeed, in them there is an opportunity to oppose the man-made to the natural, the geometric to the formless.
Typical signs of a formal direction
In a formal garden:
Strict, straight lines are present
there is a main compositional axis
in the creation of all compositions, including in the layout of the garden, geometry was used
decorative and functional elements are arranged symmetrically
there is no variety of elements, many of them are repeated many times
the center of the garden is a building, a house
trees and shrubs are given a geometric or artistic form
there are clear boundaries between the garden and the surrounding area
mostly flat surfaces are used for breakdown, and with a more pronounced relief, the garden is designed in the form of terraces connected by stairs.
Main elements
Throughout the history of development in a formal direction, a set of characteristic elements has been formed that are recommended when creating parks of this type. And every element of a regular park speaks of its man-made and artificial nature. Let's talk about them in more detail.
Parterre
This is a decorative planting ridge, often of a square shape (but it can also be in the shape of a circle, oval), along the perimeter of which trimmed low-growing plants are planted. The ridge is filled with a patterned ornament of ornamental plants, gravel of various shades or flowers (parterre flower garden). The parterres are separated by sandy paths.
Lace parterre
The lace parquet differs from the usual one in a strongly curly, swirling pattern. The pattern can be formed by trimmed yew or boxwood, or colored gravel, sand.
This is an ornamental flower garden, where plants specially selected for their color and flowering time form a complex pattern. In its center there may be a fountain, a small sculpture or a flowerpot.
It is usually used as a background for parterre flower beds and tapeworms. However, the lawn can be an independent decorative element. Then grass seeds are planted in a clearly marked pattern. In this case, it can be framed in the form of a strip of colored gravel or a vegetable border.
This is an area where a small group of trees or shrubs is planted, subjected to decorative shearing. Such areas were artificial groves on a flat lawn or in a clearing. And if the trees were located along the perimeter, then such bosquets were called green cabinets.
Alley
This element is familiar to everyone and needs no special introduction. This is a straight path with trees planted along the edges.
A bush or tree that has been given a certain, often geometric, shape by shearing.
Hedges
This is an indispensable attribute of a regular garden. Hedges act not only as decorative elements, they also divide the territory into zones. They are often used to create labyrinths and borders.
Goose foot
This is the name of 3-5 paths or alleys, converging at one point, usually in the center of the composition.
Water
The ponds of the garden in a regular style can be round, oval, square, rectangular, with a clear coastline. Plants are planted in rows in the coastal zone. On large areas, cascades are created.
Sculpture
Sculptural compositions are used to animate the garden as well as to enhance perspectives.
When creating a garden, it is not necessary to use all of the above elements. You can take some of them, those that are more suitable for a specific relief, size of the territory, and make a decent composition. The main thing is to follow the rules of the formal direction.
Almost four hundred years have passed since the entire royal court, led by Louis XIV, gasped in admiration at the sight of Versailles, the world's first example of a French regular park. Today, the use of this style is a fairly common technique in the art of landscape design. It is impossible to imagine a single castle in Europe, not a single royal residence without a unique "visiting card" - neatly trimmed bushes and trees, bright parterre flower beds, symmetrically located fountains and pavilions. Originally designed for the vast areas of royal palaces, the regular-style garden has gradually moved to more modest spaces - in the territory of country houses.
Using the elements of regularity, you can easily bring a considerable amount of solemnity and grandeur to the exterior of a private house. Modern landscape designers have managed to soften this style somewhat, depriving it of pomp and cumbersomeness that are unnecessary for our realities. However, all the same, even the most modest and simple composition, created in a regular style, is a luxury item, since its constituent elements, by definition, cannot be cheap and there is no more subtle and graceful way to hint at your prosperity to the environment than to break it near your house. small royal garden.
Regular garden in history
The creator of the regular style is considered to be the court gardener of Louis XIV, André Le Nôtre, whose design fantasies led to the emergence of verified geometric forms of many garden and park ensembles, the first of which was the park of the Palace of Versailles. It was Le Nôtre who came up with the main rules for creating a regular garden: clear axial symmetry of the composition, the center of which can be a building, a fountain, an unusual large flower bed or a statue; flat garden paths; hedges; topiary forms.
Having gained extraordinary popularity among the French nobility, the regular style in landscape design gradually began to seize new spaces, firmly establishing itself in many European parks, including Russia. Russian regular gardens and parks appeared with the light hand of Peter I, who, having visited Versailles in 1717, decided to create something similar in his homeland. Peter transformed the French style somewhat, increasing the number of flower beds and reservoirs, but at the same time retaining the clarity of lines and shapes.
Main characteristics of the regular style
1. Scale
Since regular gardens were originally used to decorate vast areas of castles and palaces, they are traditionally associated with scale. Designed for long walks, this garden conceals new views at every turn of the hedge and plays out different "performances". It is difficult to organize such "theatricality" on a small garden plot, and various decorative elements inherent in a regular style will burden a small space. In addition, to create such a garden, a mandatory requirement is a perfectly flat, level relief surface, which requires certain earthworks.
2. Geometry
The regular style is characterized by axial symmetry, where the house is most often the axis, and clear, straight lines that allow you to streamline the space as much as possible. Any randomness in such a garden is a priori unacceptable. The main element of the garden in a regular style is the parterre - an open area with flower beds, lawns, borders, consisting of several sections of the correct geometric shape. In the center of flower arrangements, intricate statues or fountains are often installed.
3. Topiary forms and hedges
In order to divide a regular garden into zones, arches, pergolas, and various hedges are widely used. Topiary figures created by cutting trees and shrubs are one of the main decorations of the territory in a regular style. Plants of a wide variety of geometric shapes are created using this technique.
4. Reservoirs
An indispensable element of a regular garden is a body of water with a well-defined coastline. It can be either in the form of a rectangle, or a circle or an oval, framed by suitable vegetation. Pools and various fountains are also widespread.
Fountains and pools - part of the style
5. Special plants for a regular garden
if possible, it should retain its decorative effect all year round, therefore, for landscaping, preference is given to evergreen plants, for example, boxwood, holly, and yew are widespread in such territories.Of great importance for the regular style and flower beds, which are located in open, sunny places. The lighting of the plants should be uniform, otherwise the asymmetry of their growth and development cannot be avoided, which is unacceptable for this style. Basically, annual plants are used for parterre flower beds. Most perennials are not suitable for regular flower beds, due to the short duration of their flowering.
The decorative elements are characterized by the use of marble, ceramics, bronze, artistic forging. In a regular garden, everything should be luxurious and elegant, so savings are inappropriate for this style.
Gardening art was born far from today and not even one thousand years ago, it goes back to deep antiquity. A garden is a mirror that reflects the most beautiful features of the soul of a particular nation, reflects its culture, way of life, attitude. Some styles go away without leaving any significant traces behind, while others, on the contrary, become standards for all subsequent generations.
The particular style depends on what type of planning a person chooses, what equipment he uses and what plants he plants. It is no less important what the garden plot is and what architectural style the residential building belongs to. The style depends not only on the culture of each individual area, but also on the individual preferences of the owner of the garden.
Style in landscape design is a certain interpretation of the basic rules and techniques of planning, equipment and colors of the garden.
The history of the development of garden and park construction
During the heyday of Sumerian civilization, people planted trees along the canals for irrigation. The purpose of planting trees along the canal was to reduce water evaporation. But very soon the goals of the Babylonians and Assyrians went beyond the purely utilitarian ones. It was these peoples who brought hanging gardens and forest parks to our world.
The first mention of gardens
The fifth century BC is the era of the highest flowering of Babylon, it was in that era that it became the cultural center of the entire east, and it was then that the famous Hanging Gardens were created by King Nebuchadnezzar. Their beauty amazed their contemporaries, and among their descendants legends about the famous "Hanging Gardens of Babylon" were written.
The story of the Hanging Gardens is the love story of King Nebuchadnezzar, who created them for his Indian-born wife, in which she would find solace from her homesickness. As time went on, epochs succeeded each other, but the famous creation of the Babylonian king continued to captivate the imagination with its beauty. Delighted Arabs created gardens of a similar type in Spain.
But not only the Sumerians were masters of garden art. The Medes and Persians were also successful in creating gardens. Yet their style was not very different from that of the Assyrians and Babylonians. Usually the palace was the very place that was surrounded by gardens. Their structure was geometric, there were many alleys inside. Such gardens were called "paradisi".
Even then, people learned not only to use ready-made natural samples, but also to create new varieties of plants - even then they knew how to graft trees. For example, the famous historian of ancient Greece, Herodotus wrote about the magnificent rose of King Midas with sixteen petals.
The ancient Greeks strove for harmony, ancient cosmology taught that order reigns in the universe, harmonious constitution was valued in the beauty of the body. Exactly the same view prevailed in relation to the gardens - they were dominated by symmetry. Fountains, vases, columns and sculptures adorned park squares and garden alleys. It was ancient Greek culture that laid the foundations of park art.
In terms of planting, the most commonly used were firs, palms, oaks, cypresses, plane trees and olive trees. They were used to decorate gardens, they grew in parks and emphasized the beauty of temples or residential buildings.
Gardens of Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome reached the greatest heights in park and garden art. The Romans conquered not only peoples, but also their culture. Expanding its territorial space, Rome expanded its cultural horizons. The Romans used the most outstanding achievements of the Greeks, Egyptians and many other civilizations, and in this multicultural cauldron was born a unique Roman park and garden culture.
The landscape gardening art of the ancient Romans is one of the richest in history. Correct geometric gardens and parks have become a model for posterity, have become a real treasure of the entire world culture.
Garden culture of the Middle Ages
With the onset of the Middle Ages in Europe, the main focus and Monasteries became the core of culture, education and civilization. It is not surprising, therefore, that it was mainly they who played a central role in the creation and decoration of gardens and parks. Within the boundaries of the monastery walls a new world began, in which gardens bloomed. The monks have preserved the experience of all previous cultures and combined it with modern knowledge. All of this was used in the process of growing plants, growing medicines and processing vegetable gardens. The perception of the world changed, a unique perception of nature appeared, the central element of which was the garden of Eden. Working in the garden brought purification of the soul, since during the work the monks contemplated the earthly image of the heavenly paradise. In those days, a paradise courtyard appeared - a special quadrangular space within the walls of the monastery, which is closed by an ambit with a covered arcade. The prototype of such a garden is the Roman peristyle. In the center of the garden there was usually a well, a reservoir, or some other source of clean water.
If in one monastery or another they were engaged in fish farming (so that there was something to eat during the fast), then in the center there was a whole pool. Four geometrically correct paths led to the source. Bushes and short trees were rarely planted. The beds, most often, served as a source of various medicinal herbs or flowers to decorate the temple. The flowers were given a symbolic meaning. The white lily is the integrity of the Virgin Mary, the white rose is Mary herself, the red rose is the blood of Christ, etc.
The gardens of medieval Europe were divided according to their functions:
1)Herbarium- a garden where medicinal flowers or herbs grew;
2)Gardinum- kitchen garden where fruits and vegetables grew;
3)Viridarium- garden for recreation and entertainment;
In his 1812 rescript, Emperor Charlemagne indicated which flowers should be planted in his gardens. There was a detailed list, which indicated about 60 species of ornamental plants and flowers. Copies of this list were circulated to all European monasteries. But not only monasteries were known for the art of creating parks and gardens. Palaces and even many city buildings often had their own personal garden plots. Monuments of medieval literature, as well as songs of bards, minstrels and troubadours brought to us not only exciting stories, but also a description of the appearance of the gardens that belonged to the nobility. Many book miniatures and illustrations tell about the gardens of the late Gothic era.
The characteristic features of such gardens were the stone walls that fenced them. Often these walls were complemented by water ditches or small pavilions. The beds were rectangular, and plank, brick or stone paths were often laid between them. Roots and vegetables grew on the beds, as well as plants, with the help of which they scared away insects or prepared "love drinks".
Landscape parks also appeared in the Middle Ages, as evidenced by many images in the paintings of that time. A not very high wall was used as benches, usually it was covered with turf. In the center of the garden there was a water source (as a rule, it was a fountain, well or pool). In addition, people often ate there, so there was also a food table in the center.
Trees and bushes were often cut, it also happened that whole garden labyrinths leading to the center were cut. The patterns on the floors of Gothic cathedrals served as a model for the shapes of the labyrinth. The wealthier owners could also afford to breed animals in their gardens. Peacocks, crackers, pheasants, wood grouses and starlings were often seen there.
Fragrant herbs were widely used, which were used both to remind people of heaven and to cleanse locks of bad odors. The roses that the Crusaders brought from the Middle East were especially prized as decorative flowers. In places intended for various secular entertainments and knightly tournaments, they liked to arrange "meadows of flowers".
With the onset of the Renaissance, landscape gardening became widespread. It was during this era that most of the exemplary parks and gardens, similar to the gardens of Versailles, appeared, which are still a cultural heritage of Europe. The basis for all styles was laid by landscape and regular style.
Garden stylistics in Russia
Garden construction in Russia dates back to ancient times. Back in the eleventh century, the first gardens appeared in Kiev, and the first exemplary garden in Russia appeared already in the twelfth century in Vladimir. It was created by Andrey Bogolyubsky. Then the gardens began to be actively created in Suzdal, Murom and many other Russian cities. As in all of Europe, in Russia until the sixteenth century, monasteries were the main place for creating gardens.
The Makarievsky garden, Glebkov, Galiatevsky, and also the garden, which was created by Metropolitan Alexy, were especially famous. In the sixteenth century, palace gardens began to appear. The most famous of them were built within the walls of the Kremlin, as well as on the Moskva River, along the Yauza River and on Vorontsov Pole.
The beginning of the reign of Peter the Great marked a new stage in the Russian landscape gardening art. The first botanical gardens appeared in Petrograd, and in 1706 they appeared in Moscow, where the "Pharmaceutical Garden" was created, which still exists as a branch of the Botanical Garden of Moscow University. Influenced by the landscape style, the appearance of Russian parks in the late 18th - early 19th centuries changed. New parks began to appear, and the old ones were rebuilt according to the canons of this style.
Russian masters borrowed all the most advanced achievements of Italian and French gardening art and transferred them to Russian soil. Russian gardens and parks harmoniously fit into Russian landscapes, which is especially noticeable in the composition of the Peterhof parks, as well as in Pavlovsky Park. It was this time that was marked by the flourishing of the Russian landscape gardening culture.
Among the most famous parks are Tsarskoye Selo, Oranienbaum parks, Peterhof, Summer Garden, Tsaritsyno Park, Kuskovo and Arkhangelskoye. Russian parks are rightfully included in the treasury of world gardening art along with outstanding gardens and parks in France, Italy and Great Britain.
The Russian country garden with linden alleys, oak groves, thickets of lilacs and rose hips, forest meadows and variegated flowering lawns was a natural continuation of the surrounding forests, but at the same time a thoughtful profitable economy, which included an apiary, livestock and poultry, cascades of ponds with fish cages, vegetable gardens with vegetables and greenhouses, fruit plantings. Beauty and utility were combined into a poetic image of a garden, all of which complemented each other.
Nowadays, the Russian park style is being used more and more. Something similar in spirit is found outside of Russia. So, in Germany these days the style “naturgarten” is popular, in France it is “fried du natur” and in England it is “ecogarden”.
