Baroque garden designers used optical illusions to make small estates look massive.

The Baroque era, spanning roughly from 1600 to 1750, was defined by a desire for order and the display of power through landscape architecture. André Le Nôtre, the principal gardener of King Louis XIV, perfected these techniques at the Palace of Versailles starting in 1661. He utilized 'forced perspective' by making the far end of the Grand Canal wider than the near end, which compensated for the natural shortening of the visual field and made the water feature appear endless.Another key innovation was the 'Ha-ha' wall, a term coined in the 18th century but rooted in French 'saut de loup' or wolf jumps. These were deep, stone-lined ditches that kept livestock out of formal gardens while remaining invisible from the house. This allowed the eye to travel uninterrupted from the manicured lawn to the wild countryside, a concept known as 'borrowed scenery.'Architects also applied 'anamorphosis,' a mathematical distortion that requires the viewer to stand at a specific vantage point to see the intended image. By sloping the ground upward or downward at precise angles, designers could hide or reveal entire sections of the garden based on the visitor's movement. These techniques were deeply rooted in the study of optics and geometry, influenced by the works of thinkers like René Descartes and Girard Desargues.