The Politics of the Picturesque

Essays on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century ways of looking at landscape, in theory and practice.

The picturesque (a set of theories, ideas, and conventions that grew up around the question of how we look at landscape) offers a valuable focus for investigations into eighteenth- and nineteenth-century literary, artistic, social, and cultural history. These essays incorporate a range of historically and theoretically challenging approaches to the topic.The picturesque (a set of theories, ideas, and conventions that grew up around the question of how we look at landscape) offers a valuable focus for new investigations into the literary, artistic, social, and cultural history of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This volume of essays by scholars from various disciplines in Britain and America incorporates a range of historically and theoretically challenging approaches to the topic. It covers the writers most closely identified with the exposition of the picturesque as a theory, and also traces the influence and implications of its aesthetic in a variety of fields in the Romantic period, including literary and pictorial works, estate management, and women's fashion. Several essays deal more specifically with radical critiques and appropriations of the picturesque in the nineteenth century, while in others its influence is traced beyond traditionally accepted geographical or historical bounds.