Willis, Charles Bridgemann, Plate 156

William Kent continuing in the footsteps of Charles Bridgemann, detached himself from the Renaissance Garden. Proclaiming that "Nature abhors a straight line (Clifford, A History of Garden Design, 154)", Kent's landscape of Stowe reflected the essence of Nature. Inspired by the paintings of Claude and Poussin, Kent depicted the garden as that which should be pleasing to the eyes. An ideal landscape was that in which everything was in a harmonious relationship. In order to capture the natural beauty of the garden, Kent believed that the garden should represent a series of pictures not bounded by walls. He did not want control the garden and then refer to it as nature, instead Kent felt that all nature was a garden. Therefore, his landscape of Stowe Garden reflected disarray and clutter. Although Kent's objective was to represent the Garden of Eden, his design became instead an untamed nature in a civilized world. This indeed was a novel approach to landscaping, a break away from Renaissance Garden.

To further this revolutionary approach to landscaping, CAPABILITY BROWN sought to expand upon the ideas that Kent had begun.