1. William GILPIN AND THE PICTURESQUE

2. William gilpin (1724-1804) Born in Cumberland, North West England.
Was a clergyman, a headmaster and the prominent figure of the picturesque.
Graduated with a Master of Arts from Queen’s College at Oxford in 1748.
Married his first cousin and moved to Surrey.
Travelled during his carreer as a headmaster which began in 1755.
Published books of Observations on various parts of England.
Published as well religious works at the end of his life.
Died in Hampshire at the age of 80.

3. WILLIAM GILPIN’S MAIN WORKS
Dialogue upon the gardens of the Right Honourable the Lord Viscount Cobham, at Stow in Buckinghamshire. (1748)
An essay on prints. (1768)
Observations on the River Wye. (1782)
Remarks on forest scenery. (1791)
Three essays: on picturesque beauty; on picturesque travel; and on sketching landscape: to which is added a poem, On landscape painting. (1792)
Observations on the Western parts of England. (1798)
Observations on the coasts of Hampshire, Sussex, and Kent. (1804)
Observations on several parts of the counties of Cambridge, Norfolk, Suffolk, and Essex.  (1809)

4. The river bends to the right, wrapping
around bushes and a tree in the right
foreground. To the left, more shrubbery
and trees border a ruined house or
manor. In the background, non-detailed,
wooded banks stand shrouded in
shadow.
Sketch – Grand Woody Banks near Ross-on-Wye, by William Gilpin.
Publication - Observations on the River Wye, and Several Parts of South Wales, etc. Relative Chiefly to Picturesque Beauty; Made in the Summer of the Year 1770, published in 1782.

5. The picturesque DEFINITION
Resembling a picture, suggesting a painted scene, charming or quaint in appearance (Merriam-Webster Dictionnary)
Mostly said of a place that is attractive in appearance, especially in an old-fashioned way. (Cambridge Dictionnary)
ETYMOLOGY
Comes from the French pittoresque which comes from the Italian pittore (a painter).
The English term refers to the painting itself whereas the French word refers to the gesture of the painter.
HISTORICAL CONTEXT
Landscape paintings and gardens were developping during the 18th century.
Garden was about man controlling a wild nature.
Religious aspect: England was a garden just like the Garden of Eve and Nature was beyond man’s control.

6. GILPIN’s views on the picturesque
He defined it as « that kind of beauty which is agreeable in a picture ». The picturesque has been placed between the notion of the beautiful and the sublime. For him it had to feature some of the following points:
ROUGHNESS - or as he called them « sudden variations » joined to irregularity of form colour, lighting and sound. It could be found in an « abrupt precipice » and was about the imperfections found in nature.
FORESTS - a need to find beauty in places that were common for many: « Dire que l’arbre est, de tous les objets que produit la terre, le plus grand et le plus beau n’est pas lui faire un éloge exagéré ».
RIVER & LAKES - he was very fond of them for they had « a full magnitude ». Rain, mist or fog could add picturesque features as he called them « incidental beauties ».
RUINS - a representation of a love for broken and rough surfaces and the ability they had to raise the imagination of the viewers and the painter. An invitation for the mind to complete some missing fragments. Things of the past were to be looked at and remembered.
Plus the notions of distance, light and shadow and perspective.

7. William Gilpin, ‘Furness-abbey’, 1772.
Philip James De Loutherbourg, 'Lake Scene, Evening’, 1792.

8. The Claude glass
Named after the 17th century landscape painter Claude Lorrain.
A small mirror, convex in shape, with its surface tinted in a dark colour.
Had the effect of abstracting the subject reflected from its surroundings, reducing and simplifying the colour and tonal range to give them a painterly quality.
« The person using it ought always to turn his back to the object that he views. It should be suspended by the upper part of the case… holding it a little to the right or the left and the face screened from the sun ». Thomas West, A Guide to the Lakes, 1778.

9. BIBLIOGRAPHY
Website
Article
Jean-Rémi Mantion, « William Gilpin et la beauté pittoresque », Critique 2011/3 (n°766), p
Books
Gilpin, William, Observations sur la rivière Wye; traduction et notes établies sous la direction de Frédéric Ogée ; préface de Michel Baridon ; avec 15 illustrations originales de William Sawrey Gilpin. - Pau : Publications de l'Université de Pau, DL 2009
Gilpin, William, Le Paysage et la Forêt, traduit de l'anglais et préfacé par Joël Cornuault, Saint-Maurice, Premières Pierres, 2010.
Hunt, John Dixon, Gardens and the Picturesque, Studies in the History of Landscape Architecture, Cambridge (Mass.) ; London : MIT press , cop. 1992