Keywords in American Landscape Design (National Gallery of Art, Washington)

This beautifully illustrated historical dictionary of landscape design vocabulary used in North America from the 17th to the mid-19th century defines a selection of one hundred terms and concepts used in garden planning and landscape architecture. Ranging from alcove, arbor, and arch to veranda, wilderness, and wood, each term presents a wealth of documentation, textual sources, and imagery. The broad geographic scope of the texts reveals patterns of regional usage, while the chronological range provides evidence of changing design practice and landscape vocabulary over time. Drawing upon a wealth of newly compiled documentation and accompanied by more than 1,000 images, this dictionary forms the most complete published reference to date on the history of American garden design, and reveals landscape history as integral to the study of American cultural history.