Applying `The Picturesque`

Course: Drawing media

Code: AR0800
Name: Jaco Verhage
Studnr: 1368125
Tutor: Alexander Giarlis
Date: 05-06-2009
Contents

Introduction 2

Concept of the picturesque 2

Modern media and the picturesque 4

Ways of percieving the landscape 6

Literature and illustrations 8

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Introduction

When we look at the definition of the word `picturesque` it means two things.
The fist one suggests that something is suitable for a picture or painting; pretty as a
picture like a picturesque landscape. Second it means `strikingly expressive` like a
picturesque description of the landscape. The concept of `the Picturesque` derived
from the 18th century and was closely connected to the englisch landscape
gardens. The strict geometry of the french gardens were left behind for a more
careful (re) created and staged images of nature . Instead of a preference for the
volatility of nature, the picturesque rather characterized by the image of the natural
volatility and irregularity. Nowadays when you think of picturesque it has a scent of
cheapness. The things said to be picturesque are typically eighteenth-century motifs
that have become clichés, like China ornaments or cottages and shepperds and so
on. We must consider however that the picturesque have been of value in it`s time
and that it left it`s marks on our modern society. In the following chapters I will look at
the notion of the picturesque movement and the influence it has on modern society.
Furthermore how can we interpretate picturesque in artistic and photographical
interpretations of the current landscape.

Concept of the picturesque

In the first decades of the eighteenth century in england ,speculation about nature
and the development of neo classicism led to a new style of gardening that explicitly
refused a geometrical layout. The english garden as it was latter known, had an
irragular plan, and allowed the trees and plants to grow in their own manner. Parallel
to this the picturesque emerged and the term was first used to describe the
aesthetical view of nature; only later it is connected to gardens,where it solved the
conceptual problem of what is a `natural garden`.The word picturesque was
borrowed from the Italian pittoresco or the French pittoresque, meaning ìn the
manner of the painter`. It is clear, however ,from the mid eighteen- century english
usage, that this referred not to painting in general but to the painting of scenes. The
word is involved from the rise of the genre of painting called `landscape`. Our
current use of the landscape to mean an appreciation of the world as if it were a
visual artefact is the result of the meeting of the picturesque with gardening1.
The picturesque idea was developed and popularized by William Gilpin (1724-1804).
Gilpin was a clergyman and headmaster , who learnt and later taught drawing.
Gilpin undertook tours of parts of Brittain, recording his observations in prose and fine
watercolour and ink wash drawings. His manuscripts were widely spread and
admired. What he sought in his travels was the `picturesque beauty`, and his
descriptions and reflections on this were enormously influential. Picturesque however
did not occur spontaniously, it`s closely related to the terms `the beautiful`and `the

                                                            
1
 Macarthur, 2007, p.4 
 

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sublime`. The meaning of "the beautiful" and "the sublime" as an aesthetic duo is
rooted in discourses on language, nature, literature and visual art. Before diving into
the meaning of the terms together, it is important to lay out the relevant definitions of
each term individually. The Oxford English Dictionary defines "beautiful" as "(1)
excelling in grace of form, charm of colouring, and other qualities which delight the
eye, and call forth admiration, (2) affording keen pleasure to the senses generally,
(3) impressing with charm the intellectual or moral sense, through inherent fitness or
grace, or exact adaptation to a purpose, and (4) relating to the beautiful;
æsthetic." The OED defines the adjective "sublime" (in terms of "things in nature and
art") as "affecting the mind with a sense of overwhelming grandeur or irresistible
power; calculated to inspire awe, deep reverence, or lofty emotion, by reason of its
beauty, vastness, or grandeur."
When these definitions are applied to the relationship between "beautiful" and
"sublime," they can be boiled down to the following: being pleasing to the senses in
some way (beautiful), and evoking an overwhelming loftiness or vastness, either in
ideas, art, nature or experience (sublime). This is, of course, simplifying terms that
have been so hotly debated in philosophical circles for hundreds of years2. The
notions of beautiful and sublime as they relate to art are nestled within the history of
eighteenth-century landscape painting, first British, and then American. When
discussed on these specific terms, the pair becomes a triad that includes the term
"picturesque." "Picturesque" serves as a sort of middle term to the previous two. To
Gilpin is popularly ascribed the notion of the ‘Picturesque’, that ‘ruggedness,
roughness and irregularity’ which men of taste and sensibility in the latter half of
theeighteenth century regarded as pleasing3. Picturesque, as the word infers and
mentioned before, describes any landscape which reminds the onlooker of a
painting, whether composed by nature,wrought by a master of garden design or
skilfully arranged by an artist. Gilpin’s chief inspiration in this respect was the
seventeenth century artist Claude Lorraine (1600-1682) (fig2)whose idealised Virgilian
landscape paintings were widely collected by English art connoisseurs.

Figure 1 is a good example of sublime By means of the sublime 'even the most
threatening of nature's manifestations, such as mountains and wilderness, could be
distanced and appreciated, rather than simply feared and despised. While the
sublime stripped and objectified nature, the picturesque gave it a subjective and
romantic image like figure 2.

                                                            
2
 Smith,L. (2003). Sublime,beautiful. Visited on 02 ‐06 ‐`09, 
http://csmt.uchicago.edu/glossary2004/beautifulsublime.htm 
3
 Brady,2003, p39 

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Figure 1: Sublime :Cotopaxi, by Frederic Edwin Church  Figure 2:picturesque: Landscape with Merchants, by Claude 
(1682) Lorrain (1635) 

Modern media and the picturesque

The popular media of the day influences the appeal of travel desinations and
activities through constructing or reinforcing particular images of those destinations,
and acting as a kind of markers. In the past, media such as literature, music and
poetry have been a major element, even more so than visual media such as art.
Prior to the development of film of film and television , a mass audience really had
acces only to written works. From the mid-20th century, film (and latter television)
became the main mass media outlet and has been particularly effective in affecting
tourism. In spite of these modern inluences , the Romantic movement of the 18th and
19th centuries maintains it`s influence on all areas of tourism. Romanticist writers
such as Byron and Rousseau stimulated an interest in nature, scenery and
mountains. By the turn of the 19th century, attitudes towards the countryside had
emerged primarily on the romantic movement. Romantic pastoral images
predominated during and after the Industrial Revolution, when the urbanisation of
many countries underpinned the a longing for the rural idyll.4
Closely alligned with Romanticsm and highly relevant to the development of
modern tourism and film is the concept of picturesque. Picturesque views became a
key component of the tourist gaze, with rough bridges ,sunsets, moonlight, cattle
(seen from a distance), hedgerows and winding ,treelined lanes being some of the
desired elements. The tourist could make their own `snapshot`using the `Claude
glass`(or `Black Mirror`). The Claude glass is named for Claude Lorraine, a 17th-
century landscape painter, whose name in the late 18th century became
synonymous with the picturesque aesthetic. The Claude glass was supposed to help
artists produce works of art similar to those of Claude. Reverend William Gilpin,
advocated the use of a Claude glass saying, "they give the object of nature a soft,
mellow tinge like the colouring of that Master"5.
                                                            
4
 Beeton,S.(2005). Film‐induced tourism. Visited on 02‐06 ‐`09, 
http://books.google.nl/books?id=3z1i3VcYyGQC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Film‐induced+tourism#PPP1,M1 
5
 Wikipedia .(2008).Claude mirror.Visited on 03‐06‐ `09 .http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_mirror 

4 
 
Black Mirrors were widely used by tourists and amateur artists. So even today, when a
tourist composes a snapshot with their camera, they may be unconsciously applying
principles originally popularised by Gilpin with a `clauded vision`

Figure 3: claude mirror (18th century)
Figure 4:View from the bank of a river, by William 
Gilpin (1724‐1804)

What can be described as picturesque or sublime in today's products of a highly

mediated culture? In order to speak specifically about how these terms might apply
in this context, it is useful to use an example of a media event for analysis. A recent
example of a media event of great magnitude is September 11th Media coverage
of the World Trade Center attacks can arguably be seen as beautiful, sublime, and
picturesque. First, "beautiful" seems to apply most appropriately to photographs of
the towers pre-disaster, in their entirety(fig6). Still photographs are an often used
technique of the mass media, and the way that they captured the man-made
construction of the two majestic towers evokes the notion of "beautiful" as smooth, or
pleasing to the senses. (you may disagree with this characterization of something
man-made as being beautiful.) If "sublime" means something exalted, or simply of
large grandeur, or high in the sky, and can be used to describe architecture (among
other things), it is also fair to describe the former World Trade Center towers as
sublime. Conversely, it seems the connotation of sublime that refers to something so
vast, so great, it is almost terrible in its greatness, could also be used to describe the
falling of the World Trade Center towers(fig5). Does this mean that we can describe
the experience of watching the news media coverage of this event as "sublime"? I
think the answer would be yes. Many people felt terror and the vastness of the event
while watching the live coverage on television. Viewers have constant multi-media
access to news updates while simultaneously watching the giant buildings fall over
and over again. The moment each plane crashed into the buildings represented the
rupture in the beauty - evoking both "the real," and maybe even the picturesque (in
the sense of something ragged interrupting a scene, or simply in the sense that one -
or in this case, many felt compelled to take a picture of the damaged buildings).

5 
 
Figure5: Twin towers attack sublime? Figuur 6: Twin towers picturesque

Ways of percieving the landscape

Picturesque suggests a mode of appreciation by wich the natural world is

experienced as thought it were devided into scenes, each of which aims at an ideal
dictated by art, especially landscape painting. The concept guided the aesthetic
appreciation of tourists in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as they followed
this scenery with the help of the previously mentioned `Claude mirror`. In a similar
fashion , modern tourists frequently show a preference for the landscape model by
visiting `scenic viewpoints,`where the actual space between tourist and prescribed
view result in a distance that aids the impression of the soft colours of nature, and
most regular perspective the eye can perceive. And the regularity of the perspective
is enhanced by the position of the viewpoint itself. Modern tourist also desire `the
finished picture in highest colouring and just perspectives`. These pictures are used
for `artistically composed postcards and calendar reproductions of the `scene`,wich
often receive more appreciation than the actual landscape they reproduce. A
geographer called Ronald Rees points out that: ``the taste has been for a view, for
scenery,not […] our ordinary everyday surroundings.The everage modern sightseer
[…] is interested not in natural forms and proces, but in a prospect`` 6
Referring to the conlusion that tourists are only interested in prospects, Rees conludes
that: “[...]the picturesque[...]simply confirmed our anthropocentrism by suggesting
that nature exists to please as well as to serve us. Our ethics, if that word can be used
to describe our attitudes and behavior toward the environment, have lagged
behind our aesthetics. It is an unfortunate lapse which allows us to abuse our local
environments and venerate the Alps and the Rockies.”
6

                                                            
6
 Carlson ,2008, p27 

6 
 
So on that point I agree we are not percieving the landscape different as the people
back in the 18th century and the `cheapness` mentioned in the introduction applies
to many people . I make a difference between tourists and inhabitants of a `scene`.
In recent times, it has been the environmental movement that has raised the
greatest challenge to the modern making and breaking of landscape, seeking a
return (or a leap of faith forward) to more sustainable, less harmful ways of managing
and living in the natural world, and using its resources in ways which are not
terminally destructive. At such moments, landscape and economy come into
conflict: agribusiness and genetically modified crops (urged on by the ‘cheap food’
ethos of the supermarkets who control the markets) versus more humane and labour-
intensive modes of food production that reattach the rural landscape with a way of
life. Landscapes (including townscapes) change constantly, as a result of human
activity: farming, timber-felling, canal and road building, imperial conquest, urban
agglomeration, park-making, hunting, outdoor pursuits, estate management,
tourism, natural catastrophes, and even war.

If you look closely at the photograph below of Dungeness you see a landscape that
is simultaneously the second largest shingle beach in the world. The location of a
nuclear power station, and a living community of tiny wooden huts and dwellings.
Here, one inhabitant, the artist Derek Jarman, has created a garden that has
challenged the current aesthetics of international landscape design, and has
brought a new sensitivity and distinctive imagination to bear on garden and
landscape culture. All these completely different worlds apparently manage to
coexist in a kind of hybrid landscape.  

Figure 7: Rusty hut and garden at Dungeness, Kent

For me this picture contains the notion of contamporary picturesque. The

photographer Larraine Worpoll uses the cliché of the cottage and garden as a
contrast to the background. The interpretation (or concept) of this scene has to do
with both ethics and aesthetics. In the use of a statement beyond the aesthetic lies
for me the difference between 18th and 21th century picturesque.

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Literature

Books

Brady, E., Aesthetics of the natural environment( Edinburgh 2003)

Carlson, A ,Nature and Landscape(NewYork 2008)

Macarthur,J.,The Picturesque architecture, disgust and other irregularities (Madison

Ave,New York 2007)

Websites

Beeton,S.(2005). Film-induced tourism. Visited on 02-06 -`09,

http://books.google.nl/books?id=3z1i3VcYyGQC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Film-
induced+tourism#PPP1,M1

Smith,L. (2003). Sublime,beautiful. Visited on 02 -06 -`09,

http://csmt.uchicago.edu/glossary2004/beautifulsublime.htm

Wikipedia .(2008).Claude mirror.Visited on 03-06-`09

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_mirror

Ilustrations

1 www.thecityreview.com/church6.jpg

2 www.cep.unt.edu/show/019.jpg

3 www.vam.ac.uk/images/image/5470-large.jpg

4 www.vam.ac.uk/images/image/5478-large.jpg

5 http://media.photobucket.com/image/twin-towers%20grey/neg_archangel_08/9-
11-2001/Twin-Towers-1.jpg

6 www.sky-chaser.com/image/outdoors/outnyc.jpg

7www.corrugated-iron-club.info/images/i-shed.jpg

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