Exhibitions: The Aesthetics of Travel: the Beautiful, the Picturesque, and the Sublime

The Picturesque: Objects pleasing through artistic principles of contrast

[High Force of the Tees, Durham by S. Lacey.]

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High Force of the Tees, Durham
by S. Lacey

William Gilpin defined the picturesque, in 1792, as an objective phenomenon; the object pleasing from a quality within itself, according to artistic principles of contrast.
(Gilpin, 1792)

When Uvedale Price remarked; "the picturesque renders [beauty] more captivating", he alluded to an association between Nature and human emotions.
(Price, 1794)

He also intimated to curiosity arising from rough variety, and approved ruggedness over ordered beauty.

“… even scenes the most barren of beauty, will furnish amusement. Perhaps no part of England comes more under this description, than that tract of barren country, through which the great military road passes from Newcastle to Carlisle. It is a waste, with little interruption, through a space of forty miles. But even here, we have always something to amuse the eye. The interchangeable patches of heath, and green-sward make an agreeable variety. Often too on these vast tracts of intersecting grounds we see beautiful lights, softening off along the sides of hills: and often we see them adorned with cattle, flocks of sheep, heathcocks, grous, [sic] plover, and flights of other wild-fowl. A group of cattle, standing in the shade on the edge of a dark hill, and relieved by a lighter distance beyond them, will often make a compleat picture without any other accompaniment.”W
(Gilpin, Three Essays, 1792)


The picturesque is separate from the beautiful and embraces both uninhabited and inhabited landscapes. The qualities of the picturesque may be illustrated by examples from Romantic art, such as John Constable's Flatford Mill (1816-7) and J.M.W. Turner's Buttermere Lake (1798).

Picturesque theory provides the terminology to classify an area of finite knowledge as distinct from the beautiful. It is also a coping mechanism which limits the abstract 'eternal' within the bounds of comprehended knowledge.

Picturesque theory and its terminology became tools with which the Romantics established a number of perceived boundaries. They largely directed travellers towards rural landscapes (dilapidated buildings could possess charm, but "the formal separations of property" in urban environments were visually unattractive).
(Gilpin, 1792)

They framed individual responses to divine creation and human experiences within an assumed universal experience.

Picturesque travel progressed from picturesque theory. Gilpin described the picturesque traveller as having an inexhaustible appetite for wandering, pursuing the picturesque among a variety of inanimate and animate forms.

“This great object we pursue [i.e. the pursuit, through travel, of picturesque beauty] through the scenery of nature; and examine it by rules of painting. We seek it among all the ingredients of landscape - trees - rocks - broken grounds - woods - rivers - lakes - plains - vallies - mountains - and distances. These objects in themselves produce infinite variety. No two rocks, or trees are exactly the same. They are varied, a second time, by combination; and almost as much, a third time, by different lights, and shades, and other aerial effects. Sometimes we find among them the exhibition of a whole; but oftener we find only beautiful parts.”
(Gilpin, Three Essays, 1792)


[Edlingham Castle (Northumberland)]

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Edlingham Castle
(Northumberland)

But among all the objects of art, the picturesque eye is perhaps most inquisitive after the elegant relics of ancient architecture; the ruined tower, the Gothic arch, the remains of castles, and abbeys.
(Gilpin, 1792)
[Qasr-I-Shirin (Iran)]

Qasr-I-Shirin (Iran)