Andrew Jackson Downing and the paradox of artistic imitation in landscape gardening: Fid-Bau Portal

Andrew Jackson Downing and the paradox of artistic imitation in landscape gardening

St-Denis, Bernard

As a member of the early contingent of American landscape architects, Andrew Jackson Downing's career started with the cornpletion of his own garden in 1839 and ended with his untimely death in a ferry accident in 1852. He is nwst famous for recording and promoting in writing his own formulation of the English tradition of landscape gardening. Between 1841 and 1849, he published three editions¹ of his Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening Adapted to North America. He also penned a total of 74 editorials as editor of The Horticulturists, a journal he launched to educate the gardening public in matters of taste and practical knowledge. His literary achievements had no equivalent in his time and they secured Downing's influence well beyond his death. His double status as practitioner and writer gave his role in the development of landscape architecture in the United States the same strong foundation that led Humphry Repton (1752–1818) and John Claudius Loudon (1738–1843) to prominence in England. Both Repton and Loudon had successful careers as landscape architects and both were influential writers, but while Downing echoed his predecessors' will to codify their art, he resolutely set his sights, as the title of his Treatise shows, on addressing landscape gardening frorn an American perspective.