Prospect

History

A prospect, like other keywords such as vista, view, and eminence, was a significant aspect of the visual organization and perception of the American landscape. As Samuel Johnson’s 1755 definitions indicate, the term was used to describe an object in view, the view itself, or the place that afforded a view. The term also denoted the pictorial representation of a landscape, such as William Burgis’s A Prospect of the Colledges [sic] in Cambridge in New England (1743) [Fig. 1] or “Prospect of Bethabara” in Salem, N.C. (c. 1759) [Fig. 2].

Prospects were much admired, even by the earliest recorders of American gardens. Travelers, such as William Byrd II in 1733, praised prospects in the natural scenery, and gardeners capitalized whenever possible upon views and vistas in their estate grounds. The prospect encompassed, as J.-P. Brissot de Warville observed in 1788, “the perpetual contrast of savage nature and the efforts of art.” As early as 1685, William Penn requested a prospect to be created through his woods at Pennsbury Manor, near Philadelphia. Thomas Hancock in 1736 also lauded the view from his gardens on Beacon Hill in Boston, saying that: “the Kingdom of England don’t afford so Fine a Prospect as I have both of Land and Water.”

The most significant aspect of creating a prospect, as J. Mortimer’s 1708 poem suggests, was the siting of one’s dwelling or garden on elevated ground, such as an eminence or the bank of a river. Gardeners then took advantage of the natural setting by planting trees, clumps, shrubberies and hedges to open up and frame distant views. The unknown designer of grounds for the Elias Hasket Derby House in Salem, Mass. (c. 1800) instructed the executers of his plan to adapt it, if possible, to the existing views by substituting a ha-ha in the place of a thicket of trees, if a “prospect that is agreeable . . . [could be seen] from the House.” The sunken fence would allow the prospect to continue beyond the borders of the property (see Ha-Ha).

Prospects were enhanced at prominent locations by seats, pavilions, and garden houses to be used for the enjoyment and repose of those walking through the garden [Fig. 3]. As A. J. Downing noted in 1849, prospect towers were particularly suitable “where the view is comparatively limited from the grounds.” Prospects were also created within the garden by placing an object, building, or some other focal point, at a distance from the house or at intervals in the garden. James Gibbs’s popular architectural pattern book (1728) provided the example of a temple placed “upon the upper ground of an Amphitheatre,” where trees “render the Prospect of the Building very agreeable.” American examples were rarely implemented on such a grand scale, yet the impetus to create a pleasing object of view was the same. In 1743, Eliza Lucas Pinckney wrote that fish ponds created a “fine prospect of water from the house” at William Middleton’s plantation, Crowfield, near Charleston, S.C. Similarly, in 1762 Hannah Callender described the multiple prospects from the doorway of Judge William Peters’s Belmont Mansion, near Philadelphia; in one direction she looked across gravel walks to the city, and in the other direction along an avenue terminated by an obelisk.

While the style of the garden architecture and the composition of the view itself varied, the principle of a prospect remained the same—the extension of the garden through visual sight lines into the surrounding landscape. These views were not only valued as aesthetically pleasing, but were also equated with ownership and control of one’s domain. Recorders of the landscape repeatedly praised “commanding prospects” and “extensive views.” Bernard M’Mahon noted in 1806 the “air of grandeur . . . of a full prospect from and to the mansion.” The “embracing of a view” signified not only the owners’ knowledge and taste in creating the landscape garden through which the prospects were viewed, but also their enviable situation and extensive properties.1

-- Elizabeth Kryder-Reid