THE PICTURESQUE
  • The 'picturesque' in painting and engraving

New media were developed in conjunction with the new aesthetics:

    • Aquatint: 'Picturesque' landscapes appeared in the aquatints of William Gilpin (see the Grove Dictionary of Art, a University subscription ). The development of a new medium, which reproduces pictorial atmospheric effects in engraving: aquatint, as distinct from etching, corresponds to the new aesthetics

       

    • Watercolour: watercolour, which enables the artist to catch fleeting impressions, was used widely for landscapes from the later 18th century onwards. Among others options, some colours have irregularities in the pigment which may be used aesthetically; this is called 'granulation'. 
  • Aquatint:
    • to study print processes, look at the animations which demonstrate the previous process, etching
    • to understand the atmospheric effects of the small dots which compose an aquatint, study a website on travel illustrations.
      • both these websites are mentioned in  intute , Arts and Humanities, Visual Arts, Art history, Periods, styles and movements, 19th century.
      • web animations can help us to understand artists' techniques, and hence the resulting aesthetics

       

  • Watercolour: see the website of Winsor and Newton (the colourmen of the Romantic painters): enter the main site/ Creative Encyclopaedia/ Techniques/ Learn to Paint/ Watercolour. See the passage (p.2) on 'working from light to dark'; in Creative Encyclopaedia / Techniques/ Hints, Tips & Techniques /Watercolour (p.22) see the section on 'granulation'
  • The picturesque in texts on aesthetics - romanticism
    • The aesthetics of the picturesque were expounded from 1794 onwards by Uvedale Price

     

    • In the romantic period, this landscape was a subject for poets reflecting on poetic inspiration: wild shapes became internalised.
 

 

The website containing Uvedale Price's Essay on the Picturesque is at the University of Lancaster (near the Lake District).
See in particular the definition of the picturesque: 'it is applied to every object, and every kind of scenery, which has been or might be represented with good effect in painting'
See as well his characterization of the picturesque in opposition to beauty: 'the two opposite qualities of roughness, and of sudden variation, joined to that of irregularity, are the most efficient causes of the picturesque.'