Andrew Jackson Downing

Andrew Jackson Downing ( born October 30, 1815 in Newburgh, Orange County, New York, † July 28, 1852 on the Hudson River ) was an American landscape designer and writer, a prominent representative of the Gothic Revival style, and editor of The Horticulturist ( 1846-1852 ).

Biography

Downing was born 1815 in Newburgh, New York, United States, son of the landscape gardener and wheelwright Samuel Downings and Becky Crandall. After finishing school with 16 years he worked in his father's nursery in Newburgh and gradually gained interest in landscape gardening and architecture. He began to write about botany and landscape gardening and educate themselves intensively in these specialty areas. His writing career began in the 1830s with articles for various newspapers and gardening magazines. In 1841 his first book, A Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening, Adapted to North America ( treatise on the theory and practice of landscape gardening, adapted to North America ) was released with great success; it was the first book of its kind, which was released in the United States.

1842

1842 Downing collaborated with Alexander Jackson Davis in the book Cottage Residences, a highly respected work on houses in which the romantic architecture was combined with the rural English construction ( Picturesque ), inspired in large part to the writings of John Claudius Loudon. The book was widely read and taken to the Council. It was important for the spread of the so-called " Carpenter Gothic " and the Hudson River bracketed - style architecture with the Victorian builders, both commercial and private.

With his brother Charles, he wrote the book Fruits and Fruit Trees of America ( 1845), was long a standard work. This was followed by The Architecture of Country Houses (1850 ), another influential book.

The mid-1840s

Mid-1840s was downing a celebrity of his time. This allowed him the friendship with Luther Tucker. The publisher and printer of Albany, New York, presented a Downing for issue of a new journal. The Horticulturist and Journal of Rural Art and Rural button were first published under Editor in Chief Downing in the summer of 1846. He remained until his untimely death in 1852, editor in chief. The magazine offered him the most impact on society and engaged in the fields of horticulture, fruit growing science, botany, entomology, rural architecture, landscape gardening and, unofficially, public welfare. In this publication, the first time a Downing sat for a park in New York, from which the idea of Central Park was created. He also put himself in the Journal of Government agricultural schools, which were also introduced. He also worked in this journal actively working on further developing the taste of his readers in the fields of architecture and landscape design, as well as their views on moral issues.

1850

As Downing 1850 traveled through Europe, he became aware of an exhibition of the Englishman Calvert Vaux, showed the watercolors of European landscapes. He encouraged Vaux to emigrate to the United States and founded a successful architectural practice in Newburgh. Frederick Clarke Withers (1828-1901) went into the company in the second year. Downing and Vaux worked together two years and during this time he made Vaux to the partner. Together they worked many important projects, such as the grounds of the White House and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC. His work at the Smithsonian inspired Vaux to write an article in The Horticulturist, in which he stated that in his opinion for the government the time would be to recognize the arts and promote.

His death

A short time later, in 1852, died Downing in the demise of the steamboat Henry Clay, as he traveled with his wife and their family on the Hudson River. A boiler explosion put the wooden ship on fire and burned Downing. There remained only ashes and his belongings were found days later. His remains were interred in the Cedar Hill Cemetery in his hometown of Newburgh. Withers and Vaux took over Downings architecture office.

Legacy

Downing not only influenced Vaux, but also the landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted; The two men met in Downings House know. In 1858 their joint text "The Greensward Plan" in a design competition for the new Central Park in New York City was selected. At the main building of the Smithsonian Institution, a monument to the merits of Downing, and the botanist John Torrey named the genus Downingia, a campanula plant, according to him.

In 1889, the city of Newburgh Withers and Vaux with the design of a park commissioned. They took the job to under the condition that the Parks after her former mentor should be named Downing Park. The park was opened in 1897; he was their last collaboration.

The only surviving building of Downing is the building on the property Springside by Matthew Vassar in Poughkeepsie, New York. The country house and the garden of the property is a National Historic Landmark.

VI design, Italian style, Cottage Residences, 1842.

Wood engraving of the dwelling house of Andrew J. Downing in Newburgh on the Hudson

Plan of the dwelling house and garden grounds with orchard and vineyard

Selected works

• A Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening, Adapted to North America, 1841, 6th edition 1859 -. Postmortem - by Henry Winthrop Sargent
• Landscape Gardening. 10th Edition. Edited by Frank A. Waugh. Publisher: J. Wiley & Sons 1921
• Cottage Residences: or, A Series of Designs for Rural Cottages and Adapted to North America, 1842; By Calvert Vaux, Architect. Late Downing & Vaux, Newburg on the Hudson. Publisher: Harper & Brothers, New York, 1857 reprinted as Andrew Jackson Downing, Victorian Cottage Residences, Dover Publications, 1981.
• Selected fruits: from Downing 's Fruits and fruit -trees of America. With some new varieties: including Their culture, propagation and management in the garden and orchard. Edited by Charles Downing. J. Wiley & Son, New York, 1871
• The Architecture of Country Houses: Including Designs for Cottages, and Farm - Houses and Villas, With Remarks on Interiors, Furniture, and the Best Modes of Warming and Ventilating, D. Appleton & Company, 1850; reprinted as Andrew Jackson Downing, The Architecture of Country Houses, Dover Publications, 1969.
• Rural essays. Edited with a memoir of the author by George William Curtiss and a letter to his friends by Fredrika Bremer. Publisher: George P. Putman and Company, New York, 1853

Literature and References

• Charles E. Beveridge and David Schulyer, eds., Creating Central Park, 1857-1861.
• David Schuyler: Apostle of Taste: Andrew Jackson Downing, 1815 - 1852 Publisher: . The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999, ISBN 978-0-8018-6257-1.
• Judith K. Major, "To Live in the New World: AJ Downing and American Landscape Gardening. " Publisher: The MIT Press 1997, ISBN 0262133318.
• Roy Rosenzweig and Elizabeth Blackmar, The Park and the People: A History of Central Park Cornell University Press, Ithaca, 1992 ISBN 978-0-8014-9751-3
• Andrew Jackson Downing: Essential Texts. Published by Robert Twombly. Publisher: WW Norton, 2012 ISBN 978-0-3937-3359-4.