Gilpin's Writing Promoted The Development Of Picturesque Tourism In Britain

By Author: jimmy geagon
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Inspired by Burke's categorization, Reverend William Gilpin wrote a series of essays that fueled growth in the cult of the picturesque. Although the picturesque, meaning 'like a picture,' had previously been applied to scenes deemed suitable for painting, Gilpin was considered the first to apply the term to landscape scenery in his Essay on Prints (1768). Gilpin drew upon Burke's methods and based his definitions on the combination of physical characteristics and emotions; however, Gilpin distinguished his new category from both the sublime and the beautiful. The picturesque clearly lacked the awesomeness of the sublime and was perhaps more akin to Merrell Boot the beautiful, yet the picturesque also lacked the perfection of the beautiful. Beautiful scenes were pleasing in their natural state by virtue of their smoothness and neatness. Picturesque scenes, in contrast, had a rough, varied, or irregular quality that would allow such landscapes to be better illustrated in painting. Landscapes could in fact be praised for looking like a painting, while paintings were ...
... praised for resembling nature.

Gilpin also established a set of guidelines that would help others to recognize and appreciate picturesque scenery. He pointed out various painterly aspects of landscapes, including light, composition, form, and texture (Chu 2003), which further formalized the way of viewing landscapes (Whyte 2002). By the early nineteenth century, there was a well established set of rules to follow in order to determine a landscape 'picturesque'. The picturesque had thus become "a vogue word, mediating between man and nature through the formulaic way of Merrell Sandal seeing that it imposed". The popularity of this movement, known as the cult of the picturesque, did not refer to a single coherent category but had connections to art, architecture, gardening, and tourism.

In particular, Gilpin's writing served as a guide that allowed more people to participate in landscape, which promoted the development of picturesque tourism in Britain. A key component of picturesque tourism was the comparison of nature with art. Gilpin's writing on the subject was used as a guide for how such landscapes should be viewed and understood. As a result, the practice of landscape appreciation was expanded beyond the upper classes and allowed more people to participate; therefore, both the upper and middle classes were encouraged to travel in search of natural scenes and appreciate them within the framework of the picturesque (Whyte 2002). Although the picturesque was initially intended for English landscapes, the idea was quickly transferred and applied to colonial landscapes by explorers, travelers, and tourists. When traveling in foreign territories, British tourists actively sought picturesque landscapes (Gillespie 2002). These landscapes were far-off, different, even exotic, but they could be translated and represented in the familiar terms of European landscape aesthetics. Moreover, the picturesque included an "implicit call for improvement" that licensed viewers to "improve" prospects that did not fit the specifications of the picturesque.