ABSTRACT
Chapter 3 examines the color theories of William Robinson and Gertrude Jekyll, which marked the peak of color discourse in landscape design history. They rejected Loudon’s formal and gaudy flower bedding system in favor of color as impression, to produce harmony, a calming mood, and lovely pictures. They called on landscape architects to follow nature’s own color compositions, which they prescribed as spectrum-adjacent harmonies. In their work, color transcended form. I draw links between Robinson’s wild garden theory and the writings of John Ruskin, and between Jekyll’s color theory and Impressionist and post-Impressionist paintings, notably those of J. M. W. Turner. Debates over color versus form and imitation versus interpretation of nature took a new turn. I examine the use of photography and flowering calendars in Jekyll’s color design. The chapter closes with a discussion of Jekyll’s special, one-color garden, which she helped popularize at the turn of the 20th century.
