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T_MacWood

Re:Capability Brown vs Gertrude Jekyll
« Reply #25 on: September 05, 2006, 10:48:54 PM »

...based upon a recent trip to GB where we saw dozens of historic gardens and I dabbled in some (admittedly) diverse readings, I'm increasingly convinced that the vital connector was landscape theory and garden design, particularly (are you sitting down?) the Arts & Crafts theorists and subsequent generations of garden writers they influenced: Gertrude Jekyll, Vita Sackville-West, Christopher Lloyd. I think this is the vital link that is needed to establish an influence of Arts and Crafts on golf course design.

« Last Edit: September 05, 2006, 10:49:19 PM by Tom MacWood »

TEPaul

Re:Capability Brown vs Gertrude Jekyll
« Reply #26 on: September 05, 2006, 11:03:34 PM »
Tom MacWood:

I know it probably sounds strange coming from me but in a way a post like #23 seems sort of painful in that after all this time you seem to finally be beginning to understand the patently obvious about some of the styles of golf course architecture.

Sure those courses that became known as "parkland" had trees planted on them if they didn't have the right mix of them. They had lakes and such made on them too. What do you think a lot of L. Brown's landsacpe gardening was about if not for the arrangements and planting of trees and such and the creation of lakes and such. That was a large part of his English "Park" look. That's a large part of the parkland look in golf course architecture.

What did you think---that those great English "park" estates were like that naturally? Did you think all those "parkland" golf courses were there as they are natually like the linksland was there natually?  ;)

Just check out some of the great parkland golf courses in England and America and you just might find that they were there well before WW2.  ;)

But I should warn you about one other thing. The "parkland" style in golf course architecture in England and America did not become THE standard as you just said. It was simply A style in the evolution of golf architecture and obviously earlier on than you now suspect. But it was undeniably A significant style in the spectrum of golf course architecture.

Ask yourself, did it emanate more from what you've termed the "wild garden" landscape design style of a Gertrude Jekyll or the English "park" style of Capability Brown. ;)
« Last Edit: September 06, 2006, 05:31:58 AM by TEPaul »

T_MacWood

Re:Capability Brown vs Gertrude Jekyll
« Reply #27 on: September 06, 2006, 06:14:39 AM »
TE
Parkland courses are an undeniable style of golf course. And if you want to make the connection that the English Landscape School had a significant influence upon park design, so indirectly it influenced the parkland courses, I have no problem with that.

But it also true that many old Victorian courses were built in those same parks (Mid-Surrey & Cassioburry Park) and that many of those old Victorian courses were also built in the heathlands (Old Woking & Bournemouth). So if you are interested in discovering why golf architecture changed at the turn of the century you must look else where IMO...something else was going on.

That is why I think what Brad Klein said the other day is worth exploring. He sees a definite connection between what the garden writers were writing at that time and what the golf architects were writing. And that the influence of the A&C theorist may have come to the golf architects via people like Jekyll, Sackville-West and Lloyd.

After all they lived in the same communities outside London. Jekyll in Surrey, Colt, Abercromby, Fowler, Low & Maclean in Surrey, Park in Berkshire, Simpson nearby in Hampshire, Hutchinson in Sussex, Lloyd in Sussex, Sackville-West in nearby Kent.

Not only that many knew one another and shared a common interest in gardening. Jekyll knew Hutchinson, Darwin and Fowler. Lloyd knew Colt, Darwin and Simpsons. (V.Sackville-West's father Lord Sackville founded Knowle Park designed by Abercromby) And most of them at one time or another wrote for or contributed to Country Life.
« Last Edit: September 06, 2006, 06:54:55 AM by Tom MacWood »

Ian Andrew

Re:Capability Brown vs Gertrude Jekyll
« Reply #28 on: September 06, 2006, 07:22:12 AM »
Tom Mac,

Sorry I thought it was in Colt's book, but obviously it is not.
The other reference I refered to is not MacKenzie's book, but I honestly don't know where to start looking - but I certainly remember a book bringing him up because I was in school at the time when I read the reference. The reason I remember is that I brought it up with a professor. I obviously need to go through the books I read at that time.

TEPaul

Re:Capability Brown vs Gertrude Jekyll
« Reply #29 on: September 07, 2006, 09:35:57 PM »
In my opinion, Tom MacWood's Post #27 is pretty thought provoking for various reasons. On the other hand, I feel that there are some preconceptions about it that are pretty shocking (I'd be happy to eloborate, Tom MacW).

I can certainly understand why threads like this may not get more attention and participation---eg if it's my sometimes caustic responses to Tom MacWood, well then, I take full responsibility for that.

However, I think this subject, if it can be dealt with in a thoughtlful and intelligent way by all participants has the capacity to be fundamentally one of the best this website could generate.

I think what we are talking about here, or could talk about here, might shed some light on the fundamental influences on early golf architecture.

I'm beginning to suspect that landscape architecture or landscape gardening or landscape design, Capabilty Brown, Gertrude Jekyll, the A/C Movement etc in that early era, was more irrelevant, as an influence, than even I suspected. At least, I think it was as an influence on early actual golf architectural features but perhaps not the sites some of those early architectural features were built on.

And I would be more than happy to explain why. I think I have both the history and evolution of golf course architecture and its competent literature on my side.  ;)
« Last Edit: September 07, 2006, 09:38:12 PM by TEPaul »

T_MacWood

Re:Capability Brown vs Gertrude Jekyll
« Reply #30 on: September 07, 2006, 11:21:15 PM »
TE
You are the king of blanket (and extremely vague in this case) assertions without a shred of historical support or historical information.

If you want to elaborate...elaborate. Since when do you need me or someone else to request for your elaboration? Make your point clearly and then back it up with factual information.
« Last Edit: September 08, 2006, 06:57:56 AM by Tom MacWood »

TEPaul

Re:Capability Brown vs Gertrude Jekyll
« Reply #31 on: September 08, 2006, 08:37:15 AM »
"If you want to elaborate...elaborate. Since when do you need me or someone else to request for your elaboration? Make your point clearly and then back it up with factual information."

Tom MacWood:

I will eloborate but first I feel this entire subject needs to be taken all the way back to the way things were starting with Capability Brown's career, what came before him in his chosen field, how that eventually may've effected golf and golf architecture right into the 20th century. And in that process go forward to golf's initial migration out of the linksland to inland sites in GB and then America and beyond in time and place.

We need to look at things like why some of the early rudimentary (geometric or Victorian or Steeplechase) golf features really did initially appear in even some of those massive landscape designed "parks" that were essentially Capability Brown's career inventory.

We then need to look again at what happened to change those types of early rudimentary golf architecture features and what inspired them to become more natural appearing. Was that primarily the result of the A/C movement or someone who was a proponent of it like a Gertrude Jekyll and her style of "wild garden"---eg basically "cottage garden" landscape gardening design on a notably small scale compared to the massive "serpentined" pastoral "park" look of the style and type of a Capability Brown or a Repton who followed him? Or was it primarily the result of the first happenstance of inland golf design in the Heathlands like Sunningdale and Huntercombe which were the first examples "inland" where the necessary TIME and MONEY were devoted to the DETAILS of a golf architectural project inland combined with the fact that those projects happened to be the first time inland golf architecture (outside Scotland) looked back to the Scottish linksland's "pre-architecture" natural model?

Interestingly, the combined literature of the history and evolution of golf course architecture assigns it to the latter. Why do you suppose that is? Do you really think it was because the combined literature of golf architecture's evolution and history was heretofore only given some cursory glance?  ;)

Today I had a most interesting conversation with someone who could probably carry on this discussion best particularly as he familiarizes himself a bit better with the details of all its component parts. For his own reasons he may not want to get too involved in this discussion but I hope he does, at least in a general sense.

What I believe you have done, and continue to do, is to take a concurrent and somewhat parallel discipline and attempt to apply it to golf course architecture's evolution in a far to direct way.

If we start out again in a general historic sense and then work towards some of the details of golf architecture and its features and designs I think we will then see that your assumptions and conclusions just don't connect very well to golf architecture's evolution. Or if they do connect they only connect in such a general sense as to not be particularly important to the understanding of golf architecture's evolution and history to date. We then should see what the real reasons for its evolution were. In other words, what the real and important influences on it were.

Unfortunately for us, or for you, we may see that this story has already been pretty well told.

What may never have been told particularly well, though, is the details of not just how but also why various landscape design applications have been attached to golf architecture over its history.

And for that I think we need to go all the way back to the 18th century and to Capability Brown, what he did and how that began to apply to at least one pretty significant style involving golf course architecture.
« Last Edit: September 08, 2006, 08:53:16 AM by TEPaul »

T_MacWood

Re:Capability Brown vs Gertrude Jekyll
« Reply #32 on: September 08, 2006, 09:15:34 AM »
TE
You've been talking about this subject for a long time now. I'm little surprised you haven't produced an essay explaining and supporting your conclusion of what transpired back then.


We then need to look again at what happened to change those types of early golf architecture features and what inspired them to become more natural appearing. Was that primarily the result of the A/C movement or someone who was a proponent of it like a Gertrude Jekyll and her style of "wild garden", basically "cottage garden" landscape gardening design on a notably small scale compared to the massive "serpentined" pastoral "park" look of the style and type of a Capability Brown? Or was it primarily the result of the first happenstance of inland golf design in the Heathlands like Sunningdale and Huntercombe which were the first examples "inland" where the necessary TIME and MONEY were devoted to a golf architectural project inland combined with the fact that those projects happened to be the first time inland golf architecture (outside Scotland) looked back to the Scottish linksland's "pre-architecture" natural model?

Interestingly, the combined literature of the history and evolution of golf course architecture assigns it to the latter. Why do you suppose that is?


To one degree or another you can look to all of those as influences that combined to create the big change at the turn of the century.

The A&C movement because it was the dominant aesthetic influence at that time. It was more a philosophy than a style and because of that it had an influence a very wide collection of arts and crafts. There is no reason to believe golf architecture would have been immune.

Jekyll, Robinson and other A&C gardeners because the hobby of gardening was - and stilll is - extremely popular in Britain. They were widely published and widely read, and therefore would have been a logical point for the average Joe to be exposed to A&C thought. There was also a crossover with consturction technigue...earth moving, grading, etc.

Who built Huntercombe & Sunningdale, and what was his background?

The English Landscape School would have been an influence...especially its scale and its use of trees. I think its influence probably came later. The fact that many of the old Victorian designs were located in these parks leads me to believe that.

No doubt time and money played an important role with Huntercombe and Sunningdale. But the question is: why did they decide that it was necessary to go another direction, a direction that would require more time and money. People had time and money in the period when Victorian style courses were being built.

I don't believe it was happanstance. Huntercombe and Sunningdale were not the first courses built in the heathland. The original Woking and Bournemouth are two Vistorian style courses that were built on a heath, and I'm certain there were others.

Without a doubt the Scottish links was the model for the modern heathland courses. But shouldn't it have been the model all along, after all the men the laid these courses out were products of Scottish links golf. For whatever reason they built some very odd versions of links golf, and not just inland.
« Last Edit: September 08, 2006, 09:23:48 AM by Tom MacWood »

TEPaul

Re:Capability Brown vs Gertrude Jekyll
« Reply #33 on: September 08, 2006, 09:41:28 AM »
"The A&C movement because it was the dominant aesthetic influence at that time. It was more a philosophy than a style and because of that it had an influence a very wide collection of arts and crafts. There is no reason to believe golf architecture would have been immune."

Tom MacWood:

I don't think anyone has said, and certainly not me, that golf architecture was immune to it. This is pretty much just a matter of what the extent of its influence was. You seem to contend that its influence was great---eg primary---to the point and extent that even the architecture of the Golden Age should be relabeled "Arts and Crafts Golf" (the title of your essay).

My contention is that that is even more than a real stretch, particularly as the real primary influences on golf course architecture of that time were simply something else and more than a little identifiably so.

What, for instance, was the real influence on the far more natual looking bunkering of a Sunningdale or Huntercombe or a Woking or Alwoodley or St Georges Hill? Was it the influence of Gertrude Jekyll's cottage garden or "wild garden" style of landscape design or was it the architects responsible for those courses familiarity and renewed interest in the linksland, particulary TOC? I think history is pretty clear and pretty obvious on points like that. Not to mention that neither the golf architectural features of TOC nor the Scottish linksland nor Sunningdale, Huntercombe, Alwoodley or St George's Hill look much like one of Gertrude Jekyll's English cottage "wild gardens". And if there was some kind of William Morris "Arts and Crafts" bunker, green or golf hole style I have yet to see it and you have so far not produced it. Are there some golf holes from that time, or any time, that look like some of Morris's A/C lamps, or wallpaper or furniture or even an A/C country house? Perhaps there are but where are they? ;)
« Last Edit: September 08, 2006, 09:53:11 AM by TEPaul »

T_MacWood

Re:Capability Brown vs Gertrude Jekyll
« Reply #34 on: September 08, 2006, 09:53:25 AM »
TE
Where did you read that the A&C Movement was the primary influence of the golden age?

For one thing the change at the turn of the century was a little more gradual than what I think is generally accepted. Have you seen early photos of Sunnindale or Huntercombe?

But to answer your question the model for the bunkers you listed were the links. I don't believe that A&C philosophy and the seaside links model are mutually exclusive. In fact A&C philosophy requires an eclectic or vernacular model.

TEPaul

Re:Capability Brown vs Gertrude Jekyll
« Reply #35 on: September 08, 2006, 10:14:39 AM »
Tom MacWood said:

"No doubt time and money played an important role with Huntercombe and Sunningdale. But the question is: why did they decide that it was necessary to go another direction, a direction that would require more time and money. People had time and money in the period when Victorian style courses were being built."

"I don't believe it was happanstance. Huntercombe and Sunningdale were not the first courses built in the heathland. The original Woking and Bournemouth are two Vistorian style courses that were built on a heath, and I'm certain there were others."

"Without a doubt the Scottish links was the model for the modern heathland courses. But shouldn't it have been the model all along, after all the men the laid these courses out were products of Scottish links golf. For whatever reason they built some very odd versions of links golf, and not just inland."

Tom MacWood:

These are the very issues we need to look at again, and very carefully. And when we do I think most everyone, perhaps even including you, will come to some very different conclusions not only about why but also how golf architecture evolved the way it did over that period of perhaps half a century AFTER IT FIRST  migrated out of the Scottish linksland to places like GB and eventually America and then on around the world.

TEPaul

Re:Capability Brown vs Gertrude Jekyll
« Reply #36 on: September 08, 2006, 10:18:35 AM »
"TE
Where did you read that the A&C Movement was the primary influence of the golden age?"

Tom MacWood:

Oh, I read it in some essay entitled "Arts and Crafts Golf' by some guy in an Ivory Tower in Ohio by the name of Tom MacWood. Are you familiar with that five part essay? If not I think you may be able to find it on this website under the "My Opinion" section.


TEPaul

Re:Capability Brown vs Gertrude Jekyll
« Reply #37 on: September 08, 2006, 10:28:47 AM »
"I don't believe that A&C philosophy and the seaside links model are mutually exclusive. In fact A&C philosophy requires an eclectic or vernacular model."

Tom MacWood:

That may be so, and it probably is so, but that fact that two things are not mutually exclusive certainly does not mean that one has had some important influence on the other that we have been heretofore unaware of.  ;)

I suppose one could say that the fact the sun rises every day is not mutually exclusive to the fact that golf agronomy survives and prospers but is it really interesting or enlightening to point out some non-mutually excluve general fact of life like that? Your assignment of the importance of the A/C movement in a general sense is a real stretch and then your assignment of its importance to the evolution of golf course architecture is another real stretch and since it is it isn't even remotely as important as the analogy of the sun to grass, as general as that is---eg as general as the sun's influence on grass is.  ;)
« Last Edit: September 08, 2006, 10:34:01 AM by TEPaul »

T_MacWood

Re:Capability Brown vs Gertrude Jekyll
« Reply #38 on: September 08, 2006, 11:03:28 AM »

Tom MacWood:

These are the very issues we need to look at again, and very carefully. And when we do I think most everyone, perhaps even including you, will come to some very different conclusions not only about why but also how golf architecture evolved the way it did over that period of perhaps half a century AFTER IT FIRST  migrated out of the Scottish linksland to places like GB and eventually America and then on around the world.


I've never stopped looking at it.

Tom MacWood:

Oh, I read it in some essay entitled "Arts and Crafts Golf' by some guy in an Ivory Tower in Ohio by the name of Tom MacWood. Are you familiar with that five part essay? If not I think you may be able to find it on this website under the "My Opinion" section.


Where in the essay did I write the A&C movement was the primary influence of the golden age?

"I don't believe that A&C philosophy and the seaside links model are mutually exclusive. In fact A&C philosophy requires an eclectic or vernacular model."

Tom MacWood:

That may be so, and it probably is so, but that fact that two things are not mutually exclusive certainly does not mean that one has had some important influence on the other that we have been heretofore unaware of.  ;)

I suppose one could say that the fact the sun rises every day is not mutually exclusive to the fact that golf agronomy survives and prospers but is it really interesting or enlightening to point out some non-mutually excluve general fact of life like that? Your assignment of the importance of the A/C movement in a general sense is a real stretch and then your assignment of its importance to the evolution of golf course architecture is another real stretch and since it is it isn't even remotely as important as the analogy of the sun to grass, as general as that is---eg as general as the sun's influence on grass is.  ;)

That is a ridiculous analogy and insulting to anyone who has seriously studied this period in history.
« Last Edit: September 08, 2006, 11:11:11 AM by Tom MacWood »

TEPaul

Re:Capability Brown vs Gertrude Jekyll
« Reply #39 on: September 08, 2006, 01:56:17 PM »
“Where in the essay did I write the A&C movement was the primary influence of the golden age?”

Tom MacWood:

You said it here in part V of your essay entitled “Arts and Crafts Golf”; ;)

“I am not suggesting that the term ‘Golden Age’ or ‘classical’ be rejected or erased from our golfing literature, they have served us well to this point, only that there will come a day when a more relevant term will be needed. And considering the historical circumstances and the powerful influence that this artistic movement had on all aspects of life including golf-architecture, ‘Arts and Crafts’ would not only accurately describe this golf design era,….”

If you did not think that the A/C movement was the primary influence on the Golden Age of golf course architecture and that the Golden Age of golf architecture should more accurately be described as “Arts and Crafts Golf” then one does wonder why you made that point by saying what you did above?  ;)  

Among other things you obviously didn’t expect others to question that point and that influence, for some reason.
« Last Edit: September 08, 2006, 01:57:17 PM by TEPaul »

TEPaul

Re:Capability Brown vs Gertrude Jekyll
« Reply #40 on: September 08, 2006, 02:15:55 PM »
"That is a ridiculous analogy and insulting to anyone who has seriously studied this period in history."

That is not a ridiculous analogy at all and it makes the point very clearly what you have attempted to do here----which is to so generalize the extent and effect of the "Arts and Crafts" Movement that it can be applied to many other disciplines and art forms as an important influence on them or on all of them, including golf course architecture. The fact that you call it a philosophy and imply that because of that designation it therefore permeated so many areas of life or English and American life and art forms, or even everywhere, is simply a rationalization by overarching exaggeraton which few intelligent observes will ever buy, including some of the world's best experts on the English "Arts and Crafts" movement of William Morris. Obviously Morris hoped that would be its eventual effect but just because he may've hoped that certainly does not make it historically so. But apparenly you've failed or neglected to realize that.

But don't worry, eventually we will analyze again what it could have been exactly that powerfully influenced golf architecture and the particularly details of it and its features.

You've already admitted that it was the linksland that primarily influenced the first more natural looking man-made bunkers inland. What about greens, tees, fairways, and other golf architectural features? How did the A/C movement powerfully influence them? Do you think it was the influence of naturalism?

Sorry, but the model of the linksland undenaibly was the primary influence on the eventual interest in far more naturalism in golf architecture's features too.

Furthermore, if the collected literature on the evolution and influences on golf architecture had not heretofore been so well and so accurately analyzed and recorded I could perhaps see some interest in your conclusion regarding the A/C Movement and its influence on golf course architecture's evolution and particularly a specific era like the "Golden Age".

Unfortunately for you, that is not the case.
« Last Edit: September 08, 2006, 02:30:35 PM by TEPaul »

TEPaul

Re:Capability Brown vs Gertrude Jekyll
« Reply #41 on: September 08, 2006, 02:38:48 PM »
"I've never stopped looking at it."

That too could be true. The only problem is you never stop looking at it in an inccurate historical context when it comes to what the true primary and powerful influences have been on golf course architecture.

Furthermore, Tom MacWood, it isn't very hard to tell what it is about William Morris and his philosophy and beliefs including the A/C Movement that attracts your interest.

Unfortunately, what it is that attracts you to it, and perhaps even nobly so, had nothing whatsoever to do with influencing the evolution of golf course architecture at that time.

Neil_Crafter

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re:Capability Brown vs Gertrude Jekyll
« Reply #42 on: September 08, 2006, 07:43:27 PM »
At the risk of intruding upon this conversation between the two Toms, I'd just like to add a snippet that I have recently uncovered. Tom Mac, don't know if you were aware but Bernard Darwin wrote the foreword to Gertrude Jekyll's 1934 book 'Children and Gardens', suggestive of some connection between the great man and Jekyll. Interesting.
regards
Neil

T_MacWood

Re:Capability Brown vs Gertrude Jekyll
« Reply #43 on: September 08, 2006, 07:53:43 PM »

“I am not suggesting that the term ‘Golden Age’ or ‘classical’ be rejected or erased from our golfing literature, they have served us well to this point, only that there will come a day when a more relevant term will be needed. And considering the historical circumstances and the powerful influence that this artistic movement had on all aspects of life including golf-architecture, ‘Arts and Crafts’ would not only accurately describe this golf design era,….”

If you did not think that the A/C movement was the primary influence on the Golden Age of golf course architecture and that the Golden Age of golf architecture should more accurately be described as “Arts and Crafts Golf” then one does wonder why you made that point by saying what you did above?  ;)  

Among other things you obviously didn’t expect others to question that point and that influence, for some reason.


Nice try. I don't see where it says the A&C movement was the primary influence on on the golden age. It says this artistic movement was a powerful influence on all aspects of life, including golf architecture. I think you can recongize the difference between a powerful influence and the primary influence.

There are two reasons for your confusion. First when you read an essay with eye toward discrediting it, you are bound to miss a lot of the message. Second, an ignorance about the nature of the A&C movement.  Your claim that the essay says the A&C movement was the primary influence reveals that ignorance. The A&C movement was an appoach not a style.

Was the A&C movement the primary influence of A&C gardening? No. 15th & 16th C. gardens were the primary influence. Was the A&C movement the primary influence on A&C architecture? No. It was the veranacular tradition of that given region. Was the A&C movement the primary influence on A&C furniture design? No. It was simple hand-crafted country furniture.

The A&C movement was a powerful influence upon the way designers looked upon the world, and a powerful influence upon how they identified what would be their primary influences. In the case of golf architecture that would be the naturally evolved links.

I'm not going to respond to that idiotic analogy.

If you compare the analysis of the history of golf architecture to other arts I would not say it has been thoroughly explored...far from it. But that will change, there are more researchers today digging up new information that ever before, and becasue of that our understanding wil be constantly evolving. And those few writers who have presented a history of golf architecture have not explored it in a social, economic or artistic context.

"I've never stopped looking at it."

That too could be true. The only problem is you never stop looking at it in an inccurate historical context when it comes to what the true primary and powerful influences have been on golf course architecture.

Furthermore, Tom MacWood, it isn't very hard to tell what it is about William Morris and his philosophy and beliefs including the A/C Movement that attracts your interest.

Unfortunately, what it is that attracts you to it, and perhaps even nobly so, had nothing whatsoever to do with influencing the evolution of golf course architecture at that time.


I'm convinced you either have no interest in discovering what happened in Britain at the turn of the century or you are incapable of searching beyond the Internet or the pages of C&W.

Instead of looking at the essay in an irrational paranoid manner - imagining some bizarre ulterior motive - you ought to spend some time actually researching the golf architecture and the golf architects of this period, and also exploring what was actually happening culturally within that society.
« Last Edit: September 08, 2006, 08:13:12 PM by Tom MacWood »

T_MacWood

Re:Capability Brown vs Gertrude Jekyll
« Reply #44 on: September 08, 2006, 07:56:46 PM »
Neil
I didn't know that...very interesting.

TEPaul

Re:Capability Brown vs Gertrude Jekyll
« Reply #45 on: September 08, 2006, 08:49:05 PM »
Neil:

I sure hope others don't look at a thread or subject like this as some tete-a-tete between Tom MacWood and I over the A/C movement. The fact of a Capability Brown and what he produced in his career and how it may later have at least related to some of the sites that were prevalently used for golf courses is a truly serious subject in the context of the evolution of golf course architecture. The fact that Brown's career (and life) was over well before man-made golf architecture even began is also interesting.

The fact that A/C proponents either in the Victorian era, or today (like a Tom MacWood) believed he did landscape architecture some disservice (in a naturalistic sense) is not particularly apropos of the man's importance in the over-all context of landscape architecture's eventual effect on golf course architecture, particularly in the 20th century.
« Last Edit: September 08, 2006, 08:50:27 PM by TEPaul »

TEPaul

Re:Capability Brown vs Gertrude Jekyll
« Reply #46 on: September 08, 2006, 09:00:48 PM »
"Nice try. I don't see where it says the A&C movement was the primary influence on on the golden age. It says this artistic movement was a powerful influence on all aspects of life, including golf architecture. I think you can recongize the difference between a powerful influence and the primary influence."

Tom MacWood:

Talk about a 'nice try'. If you're suggesting that the A/C movement was a powerful enough influence on the "Golden Age of Golf Architecture" to warrant the "Golden Age" being relabeled "Arts and Crafts Golf" (the title of your five part essay ;) ), I think to say that you're calling it a "primary influence" is more than appropriate. ;)

It's very interesting how you seem to be trying to back away from some of the very assumptions and conclusions you clearly made in that essay while trying not to admit it.

Don't worry, it's not the end of the world to admit you were historical inaccurate and frankly wrong in that essay.  ;)

TEPaul

Re:Capability Brown vs Gertrude Jekyll
« Reply #47 on: September 08, 2006, 09:06:10 PM »
"There are two reasons for your confusion. First when you read an essay with eye toward discrediting it, you are bound to miss a lot of the message. Second, an ignorance about the nature of the A&C movement.  Your claim that the essay says the A&C movement was the primary influence reveals that ignorance. The A&C movement was an appoach not a style.

Was the A&C movement the primary influence of A&C gardening? No. 15th & 16th C. gardens were the primary influence. Was the A&C movement the primary influence on A&C architecture? No. It was the veranacular tradition of that given region. Was the A&C movement the primary influence on A&C furniture design? No. It was simple hand-crafted country furniture.

The A&C movement was a powerful influence upon the way designers looked upon the world, and a powerful influence upon how they identified what would be their primary influences. In the case of golf architecture that would be the naturally evolved links."

Tom MacWood:

Those three paragraphs are a great example of really hollow specious reasoning and you should know that that is pretty easy for anyone on here to identify.  ;) You're really reaching for straws now!

TEPaul

Re:Capability Brown vs Gertrude Jekyll
« Reply #48 on: September 08, 2006, 09:14:35 PM »
"I'm convinced you either have no interest in discovering what happened in Britain at the turn of the century or you are incapable of searching beyond the Internet or the pages of C&W.

Instead of looking at the essay in an irrational paranoid manner - imagining some bizarre ulterior motive - you ought to spend some time actually researching the golf architecture and the golf architects of this period, and also exploring what was actually happening culturally within that society."

Tom MacWood;

There's no real reason for you to even imply that informational resources (such as the Internet) are inadequate resources.The only possible reason you do that is to act the part of the intellectual snob which most everyone on here knows by now is a total joke.

The fact is I understand what really happened in Britain at the turn of the century in the context of golf architecture so much better and so much more accurately than you do it's just scary.  ;)

You're assignment of the importance of the A/C Movement to golf course architecture has pretty much been debunked and that most certainly was necessry to do.  ;)

Of course, you are incapbable of admitting it but at this point that hardly matters anymore.

T_MacWood

Re:Capability Brown vs Gertrude Jekyll
« Reply #49 on: September 08, 2006, 11:20:53 PM »
TE
How does the term 'golden age of golf architecture' clearly suggest what was going on in London at the turn of the century?

Do you think golf architecture is considered today a legitimate art form? I don't and I think that is a problem that needs to be addressed.

Despite its own inferiority complex golf architecture has been - and is - effected by the same aesthetic influences as the other arts. This was especially true in London at the turn of the century - evidently you  disagree.

Regarding your knowledge of what happened in London at the turn of the century here are a few basic questions.

1) Who constructed Sunningdale and Huntercombe and what was his background?

2) Art historian Sir Roy Strong wrote: 'That movement had its roots back in the 1880s with the consequence that virtually every art form by the turn of the century was to have its obverse and reverse, the world of the establishment and that of the forces setting out to challenge and transform it.' What movement was he referring to?

3) Who was Peter Paxton?

4) What county around London contained the most intense A&C activity?

5) What was Wethered & Simpson's vision for the English garden?

6) Was Horace Hutchinson an active golf architect?

7) What was Herbert Fowler's hobby?

8] Who was A. Tipping?

9) What was J. Abercomby's background? Birth place and professional background?

10) What London club was John Low Captian of prior to joining Woking?

11) What day did Bernard Darwin's weekly column appear in the The Times?

Good luck.
 :)
« Last Edit: September 09, 2006, 08:26:17 AM by Tom MacWood »

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