Landscape with hills, a lake, and figures

William Gilpin British

Not on view

Gilpin's ideas concering the picturesque are here demonstrated using monochrome ink washes. While working as the enlightened head of a boys's school, then vicar at Boldre in the New Forest from 1777, Gilpin wrote essays that defined this new aesthetic concept associated with pleasingly irregular forms situated between beauty and sublimity. During summer tours, Gilpin visited Wales, the Scottish Highlands and other remote corners of the Britain to seek picturesque sites, and his subsequent travelogues encouraged Britons to do likewise. When continental travel was restricted by two decades of war with France, a new form of tourism emerged centered on pleasing vistas rather than famous landmarks.

Landscape with hills, a lake, and figures, William Gilpin (British, Scaleby, Cumbria 1724–1804 Boldre, Hampshire), Pen and black ink, brush and gray wash, on buff paper

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Landscape with hills, a lake, and figures, William Gilpin (British, Scaleby, Cumbria 1724–1804 Boldre, Hampshire), Pen and black ink, brush and gray wash, on buff paper
Landscape with hills, a lake, and figures, William Gilpin (British, Scaleby, Cumbria 1724–1804 Boldre, Hampshire), Pen and black ink, brush and gray wash, on buff paper

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