I have never really given much serious thought to the idea of the Picturesque before and now that I have done so what I have read and looked at goes some way towards why I have not bothered before.

What I get now reading a number of sources is how ill-defined a concept it is. Whilst Gilpin came up with a number of principles that define the Picturesque I find they are actually rather nebulous, changeable, hard to pin down. Indeed, the impression I have is that Gilpin speculated, and sometimes pontificated upon, what amounted to the Picturesque and then found that much of the natural landscape that he looked at did not fit his ideals. As Anna Pavord quotes him in her book (page 29) the Picturesque “is that particular kind of beauty, which is agreeable in a picture”. Not exactly a formula that could be used reliably to predict whether or not a view fits the bill.

The other thing, more importantly, is a sense of its unreality, perhaps in part driven by its fluid definitions. The most striking example of this (no pun intended) that I have come across in Gilpin’s book (1789 at page 47) is his suggestion that Tintern Abbey could be made more picturesque by taking a hammer to some the stonework in order to improve the view: “A mallet judiciously used (but who durst use it?) might be of service in fracturing some of them, particularly those of the cross isles, which are not only disagreeable in themselves, but confound the perspective.” I find this particularly egregious. In line with the rather loose definitions of the Picturesque he gives no real indication of exactly what manner or degree of amateur stone-masonry is required, and how dare the actual physical remains not comply with his conceptions of what is acceptable!

This sense of unreality is also highlighted by Andrews (1999) who quotes Uvedale Price (page 171) in his Essay on the Picturesque (I have discovered that his book is available on the Google Books project and have included a link below though I have not read very much at all of it myself) which is all about the artificial creation of a landscape (true “landscaping”) in order to create something that is Picturesque.

One useful thing that Andrews highlights at various points throughout his book is the important role of the farming of the view in order to make Picturesque, a view worthy of being looked at, which is also there in Gilpin with his talk of ‘screens’. In so many paintings that would be regarded as Picturesque the scene is carefully framed on each side, by trees, rocks, what have you, and the view within is carefully separated into fore-, middle-, and back-grounds. This artificiality is something that you also get in real places, where the picturesque viewing point has been careful chosen, and the viewer’s attention directed in such a way as to bring out the beauty of the view. One particular place that comes to mind in this regard is Queen Victoria’s View near Pitlochry (https://www.visitscotland.com/info/towns-villages/queens-view-p402191) which fits the bill almost perfectly and continues to this day to offer a highly idealised, and stage managed, view of what is admittedly very beautiful and dramatic countryside, but int the process tames and commodifies it.

How has the idea of the Picturesque influenced my own ideas about landscape art? It has not, other than in a negative way. I have expressed the view before that the salon approach to landscape photography, the single beautiful image, holds no interest for me. Coming back to one of my bug-bears, the endless shots of the tree at Sycamore Gap leave me entirely unmoved. These are, I suppose, classic Picturesque views: there are Gilpin’s side screens an idea that calls to mind little more than scenery for a stage play) in the form of the sides of the cleft and the remains of wall; a foreground in the form of the gently sloping land leading up to the tree; and a dramatic, wide-open sky in the background. But they do not say anything, mean anything. I have long been much more interested in landscapes that say something.

Here I am very much in the same camp as Fay Godwin, whose work has been something that I have cited and referred back to at various points throughout this degree course, going right back to the early days of EYV. I did not see the South Bank Show programme about her when it was first shown (I do not recall actually having a television in 1986) so I was glad to be able to find a copy of it on YouTube, though, perhaps a little oddly, a recording of a retransmission on Italian television, complete with Italian subtitles. I was impressed by her disdain, which she was not shy to express, about the banality of so many “picturesque” postcard views of countryside. What interested her more, and what appeals to me in her work and my own approach to landscape in art, is the political, the historical, the human, more broadly environmental, elements that go to help make up the landscape and have been influenced and created by it. I was intrigued by the discussion in the programme about Godwin’s work being seen as Romantic and how she never saw her work in quite that light, although nevertheless took it as something of a compliment. As the critic Ian Jeffery puts it in the programme her romanticism is always offset by something practical, analytical, commonplace. It is never just a pretty view.

Godwin’s work I suppose comes closest to what I would regard as a good landscape photograph.

Andrews, M, (1999).  Landscape and Western Art.  Oxford:  Oxford University Press

Gilpin, W, (1789).  Observations on the River Wye, and Several Parts of South Wales.  London:  Blamire  (Gale ECCO facsimile reprint)

Pavord, A, (2016). Landskipping – Painters, Ploughmen, and Places. London: Bloomsbury

Price, U, (1796). An Essay on the Picturesque. London: Robson (available at https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Nbo8AAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false)

Fay Godwin video:

https://www.yuotube.com/watch?v=4JE8144Ak7o&feature+emb_logo

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