![]() In Gilpin’s “Essay on Picturesque Travel” he furthers that the “general intention of picturesque travel” is to search out the picturesque, thus offering an object to those who otherwise “travel without any end at all.” 5 These essays, along with his “Essay on Sketching Landscape”, set out to define the aspects of the picturesque that he had sought and illustrated in his Observations. 3 William Gilpin’s “Essay on Picturesque Beauty” (1792) defines the picturesque as pleasing “from some quality, capable of being illustrated in painting” 4 as such, it combines elements of the sublime and beautiful introduced in Edmund Burke’s “A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful (1756). ![]() In contrast to the Grand tour, the picturesque tour popularizes rustic scenes that were accessible to the ordinary citizen, albeit the ordinary citizen as a “man of taste”, who could view a scene with a mental encyclopedia of art and culture to heighten beauty in reference. William Gilpin and the Principles of Picturesque Travel This particular tour includes those destinations noted by Gilpin in his Observations, relative chiefly to picturesque beauty, made in the year 1772, on several parts of England: particularly the mountains, and lakes of Cumberland, and Westmoreland (1788). The map below outlines the destinations sought in a typical picturesque tour. Typical destinations of the picturesque tourist included The Lake District of Northern England, Wales, and the highlands of Scotland. 2 Domestic travel took hold in its stead, paralleling a rise in mass tourism and picturesque travel. 1 Although during the last third of the eighteenth-century a wider class of people gradually came to enjoy The Grand Tour, the French Revolution and subsequent years of conflict between France and Britain disrupted Continental travel from roughly 1790 to 1815. The Grand Tour supplemented a young man’s education, cultivating his historical consciousness and artistic taste, and helping him mentally position Britain alongside ancient empires. The typical Grand Tour itinerary brought a young man, along with his attendants and instructors, from the French countryside to Paris, Geneva, the Alps, Florence, Venice, Rome, Naples, Berlin, and Amsterdam. The Grand Tour, popular from the late seventeenth though the early-eighteenth centuries, was specific to aristocratic young men in England who had the money and leisure to travel. Historical Background of the Picturesque Tour For examples of the prints published in Gilpin’s work, refer to the gallery at the right. Gilpin’s work launched the cultural phenomena of seeking picturesque scenes in remote areas of England, as an influx of tourists traveled to seek nature untouched by man, and to improve that nature in sketches according to picturesque ideals. ![]() In this work, Gilpin’s passages and prints describe qualities that make particular scenes suitable for painting as a practical way to increase pleasure in leisure travel. Relative Chiefly to Picturesque Beauty made in the Summer of the Year 1770” (1782). Picturesque travel rose to popularity in England in the 1780s and 1790s, initiated by William Gilpin’s “ Observations on the River Wye, and Several Parts of South Wales, etc.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |