The first of Repton’s books, compiled from the Red Books he made for his clients: the aims of landscape gardening, the character of a place, approaches, water and planting, illustrated with views that have hinged flaps to show a scene before and after his improvements.
Humphry Repton (1752–1818) took up landscape gardening in 1788, after failing as a merchant and a country gentleman, and set out to succeed Brown, who had died in 1783. He called himself a landscape gardener, a term he did much to establish. For each client he made a Red Book, bound in red morocco, with a written analysis of the estate and watercolour views fitted with movable slides: lift the flap and the present scene gives way to the proposed one. He made several hundred, of which many survive, among them those for Blaise Castle, Attingham, Uppark, Woburn and Sheringham.
Sketches and Hints gathers extracts and plates from the Red Books into a statement of principles. Repton defends Brown against Price and Knight, sets out what he calls the requisites of landscape gardening, and gives rules for the approach to the house, for water, for the planting of trees and for the character of a place, which must suit its owner’s rank and the size of the house.
The book, part by part
I Introduction and the requisites
The aims of landscape gardening: to show natural beauties and hide defects, to disguise the boundary, to conceal the art, and to remove or conceal objects of mere convenience.
II Approaches, water and planting
The road to the house and how it should be laid; the management of water; the uses of trees and the error of the belt and the clump.
Rules: The approach to the house
III The reply to the critics
Repton’s defence of Brown against Price and Knight, first made in a published letter to Price in 1794: a park is for living in, not only for painting.