‘Narrating’ the Landscape
British Inventiveness on the Grand Tour 1760-1800
Marie Claude Beaulieu Orna
- Pages: approx. x + 381 p.
- Size:210 x 297 mm
- Illustrations:122 col.
- Language(s):English
- Publication Year:2025
- € 125,00 EXCL. VAT RETAIL PRICE
- ISBN: 978-2-503-60251-6
- Paperback
- Forthcoming (Jan/25)
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Through an overall approach, the aesthetical, material and technical inventiveness among British landscape painters on the Grand Tour during its heyday is brought to light following its logical and sequential implementation
Ph.D. in History of Art, Marie Claude Beaulieu Orna works as an independent historian of art in Montreal (Canada). She lectured on European Modern Art at Université de Poitiers and Université Clermont Auvergne (France). Her fields of research concern eighteenth-century British landscape painting and aesthetics; related to these subject areas, she investigates as well art theories and teaching methods, materiality and technique issues, circulation of know-how, artists’ travels. She has been publishing in peered-reviewed journals like Dix-Huitième Siècle, Nouvelles de l’Estampe and The British Art Journal.
As chosen by British landscapists traveling on the Grand Tour in the last third of the eighteenth century, our study explores the path to remedy the ambiguity of their pictorial genre. Indeed, being attached to certain continental artistic references while simultaneously willing to affirm a British character, those artists find their way experimenting processes and dealing with materiality issues in a particularly innovative manner. Their approach is to be closely related to the peculiarities of landscape art in Great Britain at that period, including its theoretical interpretation, teaching, and cultural perception. Through various examples, our research sheds light on this training and analyses painters’ traveling practice, largely devoted to the exercise of plein air sketching and employed to satisfy aesthetic goals. The book also investigates the diffusion of this know-how through engraving and publishing. It raises the parallel issue of artistic interaction in the cosmopolitan environment of the Grand Tour, suggesting a certain transfer of skills from the British to the continental artistic communities. The inventiveness among British landscapists on the Grand Tour during its heyday is thus brought to light following its logical and sequential implementation, from training to sharing of travel art works.
Introduction
I: A Prospect of Landscape Portrayal
II: The Mastery of Landscape Portrayal
III: The ‘Learned Eye’ on Nature
IV: ‘Capturing Nature’: Exploring Sketching from Nature
V: ‘Conveying an Impression of Nature’: Exploring Materiality
VI: ‘Expressing Nature's Essence’: Exploring Colour Techniques
VII: Reinventing Modes of Disseminating Skills
VIII: Sharing Travel Experiences
IX: Sharing Practices: Artistic Emulation on the Grand Tour
Conclusion
Addendum: Characteristics and Details of Sketchbooks and Albums
Sources and Select Bibliography
Index