A Clearing in the Distance (Magill’s Literary Annual 1991-2005)
At a glance:
- Author: Witold Rybczynski
- First Published: 1999
- Type of Work: Biography
- Time of Work: 1822-1903
- Setting: The United States and Europe
- Principal Characters: Frederick Law Olmsted, Charles Loring Brace, Charles Eliot Norton, John Olmsted, John Hull Olmsted, Mary Perkins Olmsted, Henry Hobson Richardson, Calvert Vaux
- Genres: Nonfiction, Biography
- Subjects: United States or Americans, Nineteenth century, Europe or Europeans, Gardens or gardening, Parks, Landscape architecture
- Locales: Europe, United States
The title of Witold Rybczynski’s biography of Frederick Law Olmsted alludes to the great landscape architect’s habit of taking the long view—looking past present considerations to a fulfillment that might require decades. As this practitioner of the art of landscape design realized, nature cannot be hurried.
That Frederick Law Olmsted was not a man to be hurried became evident in his early years. In his twenties he resembled a type common today but nonexistent in his time: the vocationally uncommitted young man, financially dependent on patient but anxious parents yet not...
[The entire page is 1941 words long]
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