Olmsted the protagonist of picturesque pastoralism

Frederick Law Olmsted represents a turning point in understanding shifting interpretations of the American landscape and its relationship to nature. In his work, the natural become from an antidote to urban life to an essential ingredient of the city. (Mugenauer 1995, 103.)

The Christian based tradition understanding nature interpreted the nature as an earthly paradise given by its holy creator and as a site for enhancing human moral. Olmsted contributed significantly to develop the scientific approach to environmental planning, where human well-being played a central role. (ibid., 92-93.) In the early 19th century, the idea of nature was of unspoiled kind, the human mind and spirit being uplifted, refreshed and enhanced by its encounter with the nature (Fabos et al 1968, 10). The Arcadian myth of
idolising the simple, content pastoral people influenced greatly in the late 19th century American planners (Tobey 1973, 171).

Olmsted was well steeped into Christian tradition of understanding nature by being
acquaintained to the doctrines but also to a book called "City Plans" by the reverend Horace Bushnell (1802-1876), who wrote that the welfare of the city and its inhabitants "depends to a considerable degree on the right arrangement and due multiplication of vacant spaces" and "the providing and right location of a sufficient park, or parks" which would provide the inhabitants of a city "breathing places" (Mugenauer 1995, 96-98). Still, even if Olmsted was
largely influenced by the writings of Bushnell, he was perhaps the first to attempt a break-away from Christian way of interpreting nature as a human environment but nevertheless he believed that the experience of contemplating the nature was somewhat akin to religious experience (L. Hall 1995, 243).

In his quote of Lord Bacon, Frederick Law Olmsted stated that

"God Almighty first planted a garden, and, indeed, it is the purest of human pleasures; it is the greatest of refreshments to the spirits of man, without which buildings and palaces are but gross handiworks: and a man shall ever see that when ages grow to civility and elegance, men come to build stately sooner than to garden finely - as if gardening were the greater perfection... Such a garden is the scene of the promised paradise and thus the site for our mandated moral work". (Mugenauer 1994, 94.)