English landscape garden

The English landscape garden, also called English landscape park or simply the English garden (French: Jardin à l'anglaise, Italian: Giardino all'inglese, German: Englischer Landschaftsgarten, Portuguese: Jardim inglês, Spanish: Jardín inglés), is a style of "landscape" garden which emerged in England in the early 18th century, and spread across Europe, replacing the more formal, symmetrical French formal garden which had emerged in the 17th century as the principal gardening style of Europe.^[1] The English garden presented an idealized view of nature. Created and pioneered by William Kent and others, the "informal" garden style originated as a revolt against the architectural garden and drew inspiration from landscape paintings by Salvator Rosa, Claude Lorrain, and Nicolas Poussin, as well as from the classic Chinese gardens of the East,^[2] which had recently been described by European travellers and were realized in the Anglo-Chinese garden.^[2][3][4]

The English garden usually included a lake, sweeps of gently rolling lawns set against groves of trees, and recreations of classical temples, Gothic ruins, bridges, and other picturesque architecture, designed to recreate an idyllic pastoral landscape. The work of Lancelot "Capability" Brown was particularly influential. By the end of the 18th century the English garden was being imitated by the French landscape garden, and as far away as St. Petersburg, Russia, in Pavlovsk, the gardens of the future Emperor Paul. It also had a major influence on the forms of public parks and gardens which appeared around the world in the 19th century.^[5] The English landscape garden was usually centred on the English country house, and many examples in the United Kingdom are popular visitor attractions today.