André versus Capability
These prolific and influential garden designers of the 17th and 18th centuries had diametrically opposing approaches to their art.
Both landscape architects were enormously influential. Their contrasting philosophies echo across the centuries and the continents, and are reflected in American landmarks like New York's Central Park and Pennsylvania's Longwood Gardens.
André Le Nôtre | 1613 – 1700
Born into gardening, André Le Nôtre rose from humble beginnings to become an advisor to Louis XIV. The Sun King ultimately bestowed noble status upon him and placed him in charge of all royal buildings and gardens. Virtually no evidence of his character remains in the written historical record, but his orderly designs are indelibly inscribed onto the grounds of France's most famous, and lavish, palaces.
Lancelot "Capability" Brown | 1715 – 1783
The prolific British designer earned his nickname by repeatedly enthusing that his clients' grounds had the capability of enhancement into beautifully tailored landscapes. In utter contrast to Le Nôtre's aggressively geometric gardens, Brown's designs largely eschewed symmetry, instead embracing and enhancing natural features and incorporating broad lawns, artificial lakes, clumps of trees, and, on occasion, decorative structures.
Although they achieved success by very different means—Le Notre by attaching himself to Louis XIV's silken coattails and Brown via botanical entrepreneurship—both landscape designers ultimately achieved great wealth and influence.
Whether your tastes tend toward rigid floral geometries or curvilinear, sylvan parklands, it's impossible not to admire the enduring influence of these two artists, and the beauty and delight they've brought to generations of strollers and aesthetes.
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