Three Essays: On Picturesque Beauty; On Picturesque Travel; and On Sketching Landscape
Author William Gilpin British
Publisher R. Blamire British
Not on view
While working as headmaster of a boys’ school and then, from 1777, as vicar at Boldre in Hampshire, Gilpin wrote essays that explored the picturesque as a new aesthetic concept, one he defined as "that peculiar kind of beauty, which is agreeable in a picture." Associated with pleasingly irregular forms, it was situated between beauty and sublimity. During summer tours, Gilpin visited Wales, the Scottish Highlands, and other remote corners of Britain to seek picturesque sites, and his travelogues inspired a wave of picturesque tourists. Following in his footsteps, with drawing materials in hand, travelers were encouraged to sketch, examining "the face of [the] country by the rules of picturesque beauty" and "adapting the description of natural scenery to the principles of artificial landscape."
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