Schwetzingen - Schlösser-Magazin

touched any of the shores, a feature that
appears to have caused much merriment and
teasing among visitors. 118
B.17. The English Garden
The area occupied by the English garden
west of the Baroque grounds appears for the
first time in Pigage’s execution plan of 1767
(cp. Fig. 4). In it, the entire area, with the
exception of the axes leading west, is filled in
with “forest” symbols (“bois champêtre”). The
two regular-looking features on the short sides
of the great basin are called the “cirque” and
the “amphithéâtre de verdure” in the Etrennes
Palatines. 119 They were never built.
The first hints of what things actually looked
like are provided by Pigage’s 1774 list of work
to be done in the area west of the Temple
of Apollo: “Dans les plantages Sauvages
derrière le Temple d’Apollon il doit venir pour
point de vue une allée plantée et façonnée
par touffes sauvages d’arbres et arbustes à
fleurs.“ 120 The earliest known layout, however,
is that realized by Sckell in the 1780s (cp.
Fig. 5). The long boulingrin lined with larches,
west of the Temple of Apollo was probably
retained from the earlier layout. In 1779, the
“Chinese Bridge” was built spanning the canal
on the north side of the great basin. 121 With
or without its mirror image, it makes for a
fine “point de vue” from many directions. In
the inventory of features listed in Pigage’s
“Etat général des Batiments et jardins” 122 of
1784, the area west of the Temple of Apollo
figures as “Le grand jardin anglois”. On the
other hand, the landscape garden west of the
great basin, listed for the first time here, is
described as “la grande partie sauvage plantée
dans le Stil de la nature, laquelle fait le fond
et l’Extremité de tous les jardins”. Pigage notes
that this part was not yet complete.
The English Garden in the west of the
grounds, permitted Sckell to plan in grand
118 Zeyher/Roemer 1809, p. 59.
119 Etrennes Palatines pour l’année 1769, s. n. 36, quoted in Heber
1986, pp. 461-462.
120 GLA 221/39 of 10.11.1774.
121 Heber 1986, p. 470.
122 GLA 221/45 of 1784, Heber 1986, pp. 469, 471.
VI. Schwetzingen – Historical Context
style. His first effort, in the cramped
surroundings of the Arborium Theodoricum,
had been characterized by a small-scale layout
and a meandering circular path. The English
garden in contrast shows a landscape artist’s
mature style, with sweeping slopes and
generously curving footpaths. His effective
use of trees in lines, groves and solitary
individuals, created a varied scenery, that
made use of points of view both within the
garden and beyond its borders. Those borders
are concealed by a “Ha-ha”, a sunken fence
invisible from within. Sckell also provided
the bay of the great basin with an irregular
shoreline and planted weeping willows on the
water’s edge.
With the completion of the English garden,
the grounds at Schwetzingen had reached
their final extent, an extent that has remained
more or less unchanged to the present day.
(Uta Schmitt)
VI.
Fig. 16: Nicolas Marie Joseph
Chapuy, no date, Temple
of Mercury and view of the
pond and mosque, engraving
(Mannheim, Reiss-Engelhorn-
Museen).
197