In celebration of his 300th year, a definitive survey of Capability Brown’s most famous gardens and landscapes in Britain. Widely acknowledged as the most influential landscape designer of his age, Lancelot "Capability" Brown was to England what Frederick Law Olmsted was to America—responsible for shaping the very ideal of the nation’s parkland. Brown’s ambition was to bring out of a landscape the best of its potential rather than impose his own ideas upon it. His designs are organic, weaving gestures of color and perspective into the features that the country already afforded. So natural are his designs, and so perfectly do they complement the houses within them, that for many a Capability Brown landscape is the epitome of the English estate. His gardens and parklands—as much as the houses themselves—would become icons of British country life. Published to coincide with the tercentenary of his birth, this remarkable book illuminates fifteen of Brown’s most celebrated landscapes. To love the great English estates is to love the settings with which Brown surrounded them—from idyllic parklands at Milton and Broadlands to structured landscapes around iconic houses at Blenheim, Burghley, Wakefield, and Chatsworth. With photography commissioned for the book, and including rarely seen archival drawings that shed light on Brown’s process, this book serves as a guide to Britain’s most beloved landscapes and an exploration of the masterful mind behind their creation.

Capability Brown: Designing the English Landscape

Crafts, Hobbies & Home

Phibbs, John

Gardening & Landscape Design

Rizzoli

<div>Widely acknowledged as the last great landscape designer of the eighteenth century, Humphry Repton created work that survives as a bridge between the picturesque theory of Capability Brown and the pastoral philosophy of Frederick Law Olmsted. &nbsp; By turns inspired by and in opposition to the grandeur of Brown's estates, Repton's contribution to the British landscape encompassed a tremendous range, from subtle adjustments that emphasised the natural features of the countryside to deliberate interventions that challenged the notion of the picturesque. This remarkable book explores 15 of Repton's most celebrated landscapes - from the early maturity of his gardens at Courteenhall and Mulgrave Castle to more adventurous landscapes at Stanage, Brightling, and Endsleigh that would point the way toward how we envision parkland today. &nbsp; With photography by Joe Cornish commissioned specially for the book, and including reproductions of key illustrations and plans for garden design from the famous red books that shed light on Repton's vision and process, this book illuminates some of Britain's most beautiful gardens and parks - and the masterful mind behind their creation.</div>

Humphry Repton: Designing the Landscape Garden

Place-Making: The Art of Capability Brown

Lancelot 'Capability' Brown (1716-1783) is the iconic figure at the head of the English landscape style, a tradition that has dominated landscape design in the western world. He was widely acclaimed for his genius in his own day and his influence on the culture of England has arguably been as great as that of Turner, Telford and Wordsworth. This book for the first time looks at the motivation behind Brown's landscapes and questions their value and structure whilst at the same time placing him within the English landscape tradition. It aims primarily to make landscape legible, to show people where to stand, what to look at and how to see.

Place-making: The Art of Capability Brown (Historic England)

Arts & Photography

History & Criticism

Historic England

Lancelot “Capability” Brown (1716–83) is credited with creating the English landscape garden, a tradition that has dominated landscape design for centuries. But for all his acclaim, both in his own time and in the present day, Brown has received much biographical study but little sustained academic analysis. With Place-Making, John Phibbs seeks to fill that gap by providing a detailed study of the motivation behind Brown’s landscapes.             Before Brown, gardens were small and rigorously formal, but, over time, Brown’s sprawling naturalistic style transformed not only the English countryside but also the very idea of England and what it means to be English. Drawing on copious research and experience restoring Brown’s landscapes, Phibbs draws readers’ attention to these landscapes that comprise half a million acres across England and Wales, so seemingly “natural” that they are often mistaken for untouched nature. Phibbs renders these landscapes legible, exploring what physical places can tell us about the people who live among them. The book is generously illustrated with plans, archival materials, and photographs, including many newly commissioned. 

History

Europe

Historic England Publishing

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