The Tour of Doctor Syntax In Search of the Picturesque, Eighth Edition with New Plates
Thomas Rowlandson British
Publisher Rudolph Ackermann, London British
Related author William Combe British
Not on view
Rowlandson conceived the character Doctor Syntax to mock the vogue for the Picturesque, an aesthetic concept popular in late eighteenth-century Britain. The movement grew from essays by William Gilpin that praised irregular natural forms, influenced garden design and encouraged tourists to visit medieval ruins. Rowlandson's series of twenty-nine aquatints detail the adventures of a country curate who travels to the Lake District to sketch landscapes embodying the popular ideal, a journey punctuated by mishaps. The prints first appeared in 1809-11 in Rudolph’s Ackermann’s “Poetical Magazine,” supported by William Combe's poetry, and the following year were published as a book. This title page from an 1819 reissue uses a crumbling Gothic castle to form the word "Picturesque."
