Sister Arts in Britain in the 18th and 19th Centuries

The Grand Tour

By Caroline Pontiff

The Grand Tour was “the main form of leisure travel” in the early eighteenth century (Vaughan, 186). It served as the last part of a (usually British) nobleman’s education and generally lasted about two years (though some tours went on for several years). The tour typically made stops in France and Italy and ended in Rome or Venice. Other popular stops along the route included Paris, Naples, Florence, and Milan. Particularly of interest were places where landscapes and classical ruins could be observed; this was essentially the only way noblemen could view these scenes, as there were very few museums at this time, and the views in England were quite different from those in Italy. The noblemen who went on the Grand Tour were usually accompanied by their English tutors, along with other people, some of whom provided the gentlemen with an introduction to Anglo-Italian society and arranged various activities. The tour gave the noblemen an opportunity to meet and form relationships with other noblemen, diplomats, and politicians.

With the rise of the Grand Tour came the rise of the topographical artist, such as Francis Towne (1739/40–1816). Topographical artists created art that accurately portrayed the scene at hand; for Francis Towne, this scene was Roman ruins, and the medium was watercolor. Many topographical artists also gave lessons to the noblemen on the Grand Tour, encouraging them to paint what they saw and experienced on their trip. Naturally, travelers had a desire to collect pictures of the places they toured, which led to the rise of vedutes, which directly translated means views. The vedutes were very detailed paintings of specific views; Venice native Canaletto (1697–1768) was known for creating vedutes of his city.

The attached watercolor painting is A Post-House Near Florence, painted by William Marlow in 1770. This is the kind of post-house that carriages would make stops at during the Grand Tour.

Thomson and Locus Amoenus

By Katelyn Swanson

Throughout his poem, Thomson goes back and forth in describing the idea of locus amoenus. Some examples of this can be seen in lines 911-913, in which Thomson is describing how the natural landscape of Hagley Park can be used for relaxation purposes: “You silent steal; or sit beneath the shade of solemn oaks, that tuft the swelling mounts thrown graceful round by Nature’s careless hand…” (39). This can also be seen in lines 443-479, in which Thomson describes two different examples of locus amoenus, one on the bank of a body of water and the other reclining under the shade of a tree. The language in this section crafts an image of a scene that has been allowed to grow and spread naturally, unabated by human interference. This suggests that Thomson views locus amoenus as a place that hasn't been cultivated by humans. Thomson also discusses in this section how creations from the human mind, such as paintings and writing, cannot compare to the inherent beauty of nature. To Thomson, locus amoenus cannot be captured and/or conveyed by human creations. While these sections of his poem fit into locus amoenus, other sections seem to describe the complete opposite of a pleasant place. In the beginning of the poem, as Thomson details the transition between the harshness of winter to the pleasantness of spring, we can see how he moves from the opposite of locus amoenus into a pleasant place, as he then emphasizes the restoration of life that spring brings with it.

As we can see in Thomson’s writing through his use of vivid descriptions of pastoral landscapes, there is a distinct connection between the arts and nature; Thomson uses specific elements such as ‘rolling hills’ and ‘serene river’ to reflect the classical paintings of the countryside. A home or other building’s landscape was just as important as the decorations inside the house, with many homes and buildings being designed around the landscape. However, there was a delicate balance in landscape between the garden and the wilderness. The juxtaposition of these two ideas can be seen in Giorgione’s (or Titian’s) Le Concert Champetre, in which the artist includes “several carefully planned oppositions” (Landscape 67) An example of this can be seen in two scenes in the background of the painting. On the right, a shepherd and his flock are shown in a more pastoral setting, with a low stone wall. In the middle, the background image is an elegant house on a hill, overlooking the rest of the scenery. These scenes are a great example of the juxtaposition of the cultivated garden vs. the unkempt wilderness. The connection between the shepherd’s flock to the group of men and women on the hill is another example of these oppositions, as the shepherd closely interacts with nature and, in turn, gains a larger understanding of it, the group of men and women have inserted themselves within the landscape in order to appreciate the domesticated and natural scene. These two aspects go hand in hand—the shepherd tames nature while the men and women admire the domestication of the natural world which is typical of the idea of locus amoenus (Andrews 65).

Pope's Moral Essays

By Maggie Tregre

Both Epistles 1 and 2 explain Pope’s feelings about capturing the nature of the individual in a painting. He argues that if each person contains their own individual nature, how can they be portrayed in a single style that omits the individual elements of each person? In Epistle 1, he explains his belief that men are constantly changing and evolving, so they are never the same. He views individual nature as a complex and changing thing. On the contrary, Epistle 2 discusses the character of women. His belief is that women have no character at all, and their appearance is all that matters - the exact opposite of what is believed about men. He criticizes the Grand Style for taking away the features that make each person unique and straying away from individual nature. He does this with his description of his good friend, Martha Blount, where he provides specific details of her character and their friendship, which contradicts what was favored in the grand style. In his own portraits, Pope is portrayed as a skilled writer who has accomplished unprecedented feats. For example, in Kneller’s 1719 portrait of Pope, he is seen holding a copy of the Illiad, featuring the original Greek writing that he translated into English verse. By including this in his portrait, he is establishing himself as the writer who was able to do something as complicated as the translation of an epic poem. Despite this achievement, the Epistles themselves still provide a stronger showcase of Pope’s abilities as a writer.

Redefining The Country House

By Austin O'Brien

"To Penshurst", a poem by Ben Jonson, is a genre of poem titled "Country House," where the poet goes into great details about the house that his Lord lives in and describes its splendor in avid detail. Jonson's Lord, The Sydney family, received the poem as a descriptor of their estate and an overexaggerating of the beauty of the land itself. He spends the poem complimenting the Lord's land and their efforts that go towards it. He also expands by discussing what is brought to the land’s feast in “To Penshurst,” mostly man-made items such as cake and cheese. It emphasizes the importance of human intervention within the land to make it truly beautiful. The fact that the lord is allowing this to happen shows his ability to bring people together for a common good. The descriptor describes the land almost as an Arcadian style of environment brought to life; however, it’s not in a way that makes it seem like a perfect man made building, rather its more rustic natural style of design gives it a better look to Jonson. It shows simplicity rather than grandness, and that greatly emphasizes the design of the location. Of course the text was overexaggerating but it doesn't downplay the efforts that the Lords made to preserve their land. This was a common theme among writers in the Country House genre. Many of the "descriptive landscape poems" were tributes to lords, such as Thomson and his tribute poem "Spring" in "The Seasons."

Two of the largest old interpretations of villas come from other authors we have read in this course: Martial and Horace. Their interpretations of the genre were unique, Martial believed in the idea of the working country villa with strong ties to community and farming. The suburban villa was a common theme of Martial's ideal country house as community ties were strong between the land owner and those who cared for the land. Jonson incorporates this theme into his poem. He includes descriptions of the various members of the community and how they are provided for at Penshurst. The speaker of the poem even claims "That is his lordships, shall also be mine" (Jonson 264). The people who work the land feel a strong tie to the land owner, and they know that they are provided for. He continues to say that he does not need to pray for what he needs, because he knows it will be there for him at Penshurst.  Horace believed in the celebration of a working paradise, almost tied to the mythical Arcadia, where everything was perfect. It was more focused on the beauty of the land to be even more grandeur than the ways of older renditions of country houses.

Back to Jonson and "To Penshurst," the text goes on to describe animals that enjoy the nature around the house, and the overall serenity of nature that is described in this house of Jonson's dreams. Compare that to not just the grandness of Croome Court but also the less moderated area around it, and you can see the stark contrast of implementing the outside area toward the house. What furthers this argument is how Jonson describes Penshurst as a lovelier home that doesn't feed into the ego of other houses. He simply describes it as welcoming, with no food or drink to worry about thanks to the area around the building itself. The Lord and Lady are welcoming individuals who share with their guests, and don't overexert themselves compared to other land owners. Jonson also speaks at length of the virtuous wife whose efforts are a root cause of what makes the house so welcoming. He praises her for her welcoming nature, calling her someone who was focused on detail and remained as the root of the warmth within the house. Juxtaposing the description of Penshurst to the lengths taken to achieve Croome Court's landscape, we learn that Capability Brown was ruthless, he was a landscape improver in his own mind, and his vision was to recreate the idea of what a garden could be. The differences between both estates show the future evolution of the country house, through painstaking change and further grandeur for the owner and their guests.

With the concept of a country house and a courtyard developing over the decades, there's strong evidence of the usage of a courtyard evolving over time from its initial design. What began with gardens reflecting strength over nature had become something much more inclusive by introducing further landscape outside of the lawn. The view of gardens also developed to represent relaxation as well. Andrew Marvell's poem, “The Garden,” details how the garden teaches that happiness can't come from constant work but from nature, instead. The garden's reward is that of a calm life. Marvell's "Ergon of Solitude" further emphasizes that where he says that which cannot be found in society but rather in a natural environment is more serene. Marvell finds solitude by retreating into nature instead of worrying about societal concerns. A lot of painstaking work was added in for Capability Brown to develop the prototype of a modern day lawn, and because of this large change it implemented future developments of gardening.

Ideal versus Dutch Landscape

By Justin Wiggins

The landscape style in many seventeenth-century Dutch paintings honored the more realistic view of life, which included everyday people going about their everyday jobs. Gainsborough, inspired by his local surroundings, was attracted to this style of Dutch landscape from the previous century. This is noticed in his 1767 painting, The Harvest Wagon, in which a group of peasants travel in a wagon and are led by multiple horses. This scene is very different from the ideal "Italian" landscape. For example, Claude’s Landscape with Apollo and the Muses (1652) portrays a river god lounging on a section of land while the muses joyfully gather at a clifftop. But in The Harvest Wagon, the characters are normal; they don’t have any mystical abilities. They are on their way somewhere, so they aren’t lounging. A young man is seen helping a woman onto the wagon while a younger person handles the horses up front.

This increased craving to relate to art can be paralleled with what other artists created. One of these poets is Wordsworth, who used common language in his works. In the preface to his and S. T. Coleridge's Lyrical Ballads, Wordsworth warns the reader that they will have difficulty appreciating the poems if they are looking for poetic, gaudy language. He aimed to take ordinary people and how they spoke to highlight their way of life.

Between the years 1805 and 1815, the Dutch preference was solidified due to the war that Britain was waging against the French. Their win against the French resulted in them having to depend on their natural resources, which, in turn, meant that the agricultural professions were viewed as more critical. This burst of appreciation for the landscape was then reflected in the art of the time.

Academy by Lamplight

By Jeffrey Moran

Joseph Wright's Academy by Lamplight makes a statement against the Academies and their purposes as stated by Reynolds. Where Reynolds displays the academics' stance of inspiration coming from something above humans and should be done through imitation, specifically with younger artists copying only parts of classical statues they would study. Wright's painting shows contrasts to the three ideals put forth by the academy. The three ideals put forward were Status, Training, and Exhibition. In Zoffany's group portrait titled The Royal Academy of Arts, these ideals are to be expressed through the group of gentlemen gathered together and studying nude models. The painting shows the three ideals in the men's dress, their discussions of the nude models, and the exhibition of classical statues across the walls of the room. However, Wright challenges this in his painting by having the students there both following the ideals more closely and showing a different form of inspiration. They dress in fine clothing to exemplify status, however, it is their training that differs greatly. While the gentlemen in the Academy of Arts all look in different directions, the students in Lamplight shift their focus entirely to the statue they are gathered around. The students also show greater focus on the statue, either placing their gaze on it or to their sketch pads as they actually train their artistry. The boy in the center, however, is the only student really looking elsewhere in the painting. This view elsewhere is what challenges the academy's idea of inspiration. While the rest of the students observe and copy the fundamentals of art, in line with the academy's view or inspiration through imitation, the boy is contemplating what he has seen in order to form more innovative work. The lighting further's this by showing the reflection of light on his forehead, insinuating contemplation and thought.

Reynolds' Discourse III

By Maggie Tregre

Addressed to members of the Royal Academy, Reynolds’ Third Discourse focuses on his ideas about what an artist should aspire to do. One of his main beliefs was that someone who is “more advanced in the art” should understand that simply copying what is in front of them is not enough to “warm the heart of the spectator” (Reynolds 52). In other words, it was not enough for the artist to make an exact copy of whatever they are painting. They needed to add something that was not there in order to achieve the Grand Style. Reynolds believed that true artistic value lies in the artist's ability to transcend mere representation by including elements that evoke deeper emotional or intellectual responses. While he believed that “lowly” art forms did require skill, he shows a bias towards those who are able to achieve this more advanced art style. Additionally, to achieve this, an artist needed to use their imagination with nature as the foundation for their work, but not the model to be precisely copied. In his own 1780 self-portrait, Reynolds almost satirizes this idea by creating a portrait of himself (seemingly a “lowly art,” since it requires the painter to create an exact likeness of the subject). However, he embellishes the portrait with elements of Rembrant’s style and a bust of Michelangelo to assert his superior artistic talent and legacy. A study of Reynolds’ own portraits raises interesting questions about this style - is Reynolds’ portrayal of himself a more advanced art, or is he just indulging himself?

West and the Heroic Figure

By Chay Rosario

In the eighteenth century, British artists began to find more innovative ways to present narrative and characterization in pictures. This led to the introduction of a new type of narrative art—the modern style of history painting. This style was introduced by Benjamin West with his painting The Death of General Wolfe (exhibited 1771). This new mode of history painting represented contemporary events in contemporary costume, as opposed to more classical events of older history paintings. In this painting, there is a focus on the heroic figure—General Wolfe. The heroic figure is, traditionally, a figure that is depicted in a large-scale narrative form of art that seems to share a sort of moral message.

In Sir Joshua Reynolds’ Discourse III (1770), he mentions the beauty found in the human form. He mentions the heroic figures Hercules, Apollo, and the Gladiator. As he goes on to explain the beauty of the human form, he mentions how the artist must look to the Ancients to learn, but ultimately it is up to the artist to capture what is truly beautiful in the form. He believes that is it necessary for the painter to vary the compositions with “figures of various forms and proportions” while never losing sight of “the general idea of perfection in each kind.” 

The depiction of Wolfe in this painting was one that caused some controversy at the time. West’s choice to depict the subjects in modern dress was not originally accepted. While painting the piece, it was recommended to him by Reynolds that he should dress the figures in “the classic costume of antiquity” in order to protect the “inherent greatness” of the subject. However, West disagreed. He believed that because the event depicted occurred in a region that was unknown to the Greeks and Romans and in a time when those nations and ways of dress no longer existed, it would in fact be a disservice to the piece to depict the subjects in the classical way. The subject of the painting was an event of historical significance and, as such, should be depicted in a way that accurately represents the event. When the painting was completed, West invited Reynolds back to view the painting. In turn, the original objections were retracted. They believed that West treated the subject as it ought to be treated. It was also said that the painting would “occasion a revolution in the art” of historical pictures (Mitchell 20-21).

Another aspect of the painting that was central to the piece, was the actual depiction of Wolfe. He is depicted in the pose known as the pietà. This was a Christian art theme that depicts Mary cradling the dead body of Christ after the crucifixion. Wolfe is depicted in a similar stance. He is draped in the arms of his men, similarly as Christ is draped in the arms of Mary. By depicting the heroic figure in this manner, West draws a parallel between Wolfe and Christ. It lifts Wolfe up in status as a heroic figure and elevates the scene. Drawing this parallel allowed for West to depict Wolfe in a patriotic way. At the time, patriotism was extremely intense. There was a lot of tension between Protestant Great Britain and Catholic France. West’s choice to depict a battle that resulted in a victory over the French was one that not only launched the new style of history painting, but also helped to establish the “British School.” Also, by depicting Wolfe in the pose of the pietà, it helped to draw the parallel that the Protestant religion was the superior one to Catholicism. Placing Wolfe in the position of Christ, equated the victory that is depicted with a religious victory.

Work Cited
Mitchell, Charles. “Benjamin West’s ‘Death of General Wolfe’ and the Popular History Piece.” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, vol. 7, no. 1, 1944, pp. 20–33.  https://www.jstor.org/stable/750377.

The Picturesque

By Caroline Pontiff

The English middle class could not afford to travel for two years like the noblemen who went on the Grand Tour, so instead they took a “picturesque tour,” which only lasted a few weeks. The ability of the middle class to vacation for that length of time was relatively new and was due to the growth of trade in the late eighteenth century. For the majority of the time that Britain was at war with France (1793–1815), the picturesque tour completely replaced the Grand Tour because of the closed borders on the Continent. Just as those on the Grand Tour created art from their experiences, so too did those who took picturesque tours. The increased travel of the British throughout Britain led to the rise of travel guides, published by local authors. The most famous of these authors was Reverend William Gilpin (1724–1804), who designed travel guides to help tourists experience the full effect of a view by guiding them on where to situate themselves within specific scenes. Gilpin also had several criteria for what could be considered “picturesque.” Literally, picturesque means “like a picture,” and the picturesque approach presented a method to viewing and painting landscapes (as opposed to land).

To Gilpin, a piece of art is picturesque if the background is smooth and the foreground is varied. This variation can include contrasting shapes, colors, etc., an abundance of figures (human or animal), and variations in the landscape itself (bodies of water, ruins, etc.). Additionally, Gilpin recommends that picturesque painters strive to create images that are not merely a direct replica of the view; the painters must perfect the images and leave out anything unsightly. Viewpoint is also important for creating picturesque images, as he states in Observations on River Wye. He argues that if the viewer is too far away from the scene, they will not be able to see the various details that make it picturesque, such as textures and shadows (Gilpin, 32). Gilpin also believes that even something manmade can be picturesque, such as ironworks. Of course, those ironworks must meet certain standards; they must be a “continuation” of the beauty of the landscape with “elegant lines” (37). Furthermore, a building must be designed in a way that suits the surrounding landscape, and vice versa. As Gilpin says, “The abbey, intended for meditation, is hid in the sequestered vale” (31).

The attached watercolor painting is the Interior of Tintern Abbey, Monmouthshire, painted by JMW Turner in 1794. Tintern Abbey was an important destination in picturesque travel.

Wordsworth, Constable, and Spots of Time

In “Book First: Introduction—Childhood and School-Time” from The Prelude, which Wordsworth first drafted in 1799 and revised steadily over the years until published after his death in 1850, he describes his childhood and how nature played a role in creating his imagination. In multiple stories, he details his journey through the woods and hills of the Lake District and how everything around him came to life. In one of his tales, he recalls when he found a boat tied to a willow tree. He says he was led to this tree by “her,” the spirit of nature. He went on to untie the boat and ride in it. As he travels down the lake, he describes how the voice of the mountain pushes his boat, and the horizon behind him forms a creature. This creature, mysterious and intimidating, drives him back to shore. This experience left him pondering on the forest for days after. This story magnifies his use of the sublime. He felt true terror in that moment but was in awe of the beautiful landscape surrounding him too. The way he describes this scene highlights the strong use of emotion. He describes being scared, curious and exhilarated. Another one of his memories includes him stealing prey from someone else’s trap. While in the forest, he hears something coming toward him, which he explains as being nature's voice.

In his poetry, Wordsworth describes the everyday life and adventures of a young child. There is no elevated way of life shown here. The language used, although colorful, is easy to understand and makes for an enjoyable time for the reader. Wordsworth gives life to nature and has it speak back to him. From these tales, Wordsworth creates the concept of time being a spot. These memories exist in his mind but take place in actual locations.

John Constable’s Hay Wain (1821 is a piece of artwork that follows Wordsworth's train of thought. The painting itself is filled with incredible detail of a countryside that seems to be far away from industrialization. On the left side of the portrait, a homey cottage sits surrounded by trees. In the middle of the painting, a small river flows behind the house, which is shaded by the same trees that are next to the cottage. Two men sit in a wagon placed in the water, and this carriage is being led by several horses. The water is still, and the men don’t seem to be in a rush to get their work started. To their right is a clear, vast field, and the clouds above are heavy and gray. In the foreground of the portrait, a small dog is looking toward the men in the wagon but isn’t attempting to jump into the water.

This painting matches the poem as it mirrors the point of view that Wordsworth deems important. The painting shows everyday life, as the men seem to attend to their everyday lives. The beauty of nature is exemplified further down the stream, where the trees form a canopy for the oncoming crew. The large field of land that seems to have no end represents the sublime. This painting also depicts the standing still of time. The wagon and the horses are facing one way, but the wheels are taking a turn to the right. The man sitting on the wagon's left faces the field while the man next to him points in another direction. The dog also represents the freezing of time, as his body is slightly turned and he looks toward the wagon. Ultimately, both of the poems and the piece of literature show how nature can be translated into a language, a way of thinking, and the building of imagination.

The Sublime and Indeterminacy in Friedrich's The Monk by the Sea

By Ignatius Krecker

An aspect of the Sublime which allows a range in artistic expression and interpretation is indeterminacy. In Landscape and Western Art, Malcolm Andrews writes that the Sublime escapes a desire for easy consumption found in the picturesque because “it is pictorially inframeable, and it cannot be framed in words. The Sublime is that which we cannot appropriate, if only because we cannot discern any boundaries. … [T]he vocabulary associated with the experience is one of surrender to a superior power.… In the act of surrender we acknowledge the feebleness of our powers of articulate expression and representation” (Andrews 142). Thus, a fundamental aspect of the Sublime lies in both recognizing and accepting our position relative to some overwhelming, inexpressible sensation and yet presenting that experience as well as possible. This indeterminacy and grappling with the unframeable provides a lens through which artists and poets can take a broad range of approaches from the marvelously optimistic to the overwhelming in negativity or ambivalence. Whereas William Wordsworth’s “Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey” (1798) provides a more optimistic approach to this sensation, Caspar David Friedrich’s The Monk by the Sea (Der Mönch am Meer, 1808-10) delves into the sheer depth of this feeling of being overwhelmed. Wordsworth’s “Tintern Abbey” lingers on and celebrates the grandeur of the titular sight.

In his introduction to the scene "a few miles above Tintern Abbey," Wordsworth writes that, after a five year absence, he has returned to the place where “once again/ do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,/ that on a wild secluded scene impress/ Thoughts of more deep seclusion” (lines 4-7). Thus, for Wordsworth the very sight of the cliffs not only presents objects that are themselves “wild” and “secluded” but also lead him to a yet deeper imagining of seclusion. In the next stanza, Wordsworth relates that, though he had been away from this setting, the sights sustained his interior life in a very significant way, as “oft, in lonely rooms, and ‘mid the din/ of towns and cities, I have owed to them/ in hours of weariness, sensations sweet” (lines 25-27). Thus, for Wordsworth the mere memory of the place transcends its physical location and a need to be there. While his return is significant for him and provides an entrance into solitude which he clearly appreciates, he also bears the imprint of the place in his memory which sustains him through the trials he faces in modern urban and domestic life.

Whereas “Tintern Abbey” is a reflection of Wordsworth’s nearly ecstatic experience of a nature, Caspar David Friedrich’s The Monk by the Sea provides a much more daunting experience of sublime indeterminacy. Andrews describes the painting as “a virtual compendium of Burkean ‘privations’—darkness, solitude, silence, obscurity. There is something appalling in its emptiness, in its utter lack of any consoling, reassuring presences” (146). Whereas Wordsworth is absorbed in the joy of a beautiful, verdant landscape populated by the remains of an idyllic abbey, albeit ruined and re-inhabited by the homeless, Friedrich presents a much bleaker scene whereby the barren white coast contrasts with the jarringly black ocean, which itself seeps up toward the sky in an ominous black fog, blurring the horizon. The result is a grim, endless, black sea which seems to absorb all around it, to include the titular monk, whose black habit blends in with the sea, thus obscuring the only human figure in the painting. The result is a dreadful sense of desolate loneliness. Whereas Wordsworth presents a sense of indeterminacy in his striking memory of and interior sustainment by an idyllic landscape and Friedrich presents an inverse portrayal of absolute desolation and isolation in the wilderness.

In technique and storytelling, Millais’s Isabella (1848-49) demonstrates the shift toward highly determinate detail introduced by the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. While Wordsworth revels in the joys of the cliff overlooking the ruined Tintern Abbey, despite his description of its new “inhabitants” and Friederich shows the daunting, imposing, all-encompassing scope of nature, Millais combines a medieval sense of scale, depth, and arrangement with a modern, exacting attention to detail. The product is something that is simultaneously more precise in its attention to granular details like the human form and specific environmental details and emphatic in its specific moment of a discrete narrative. Thus, Isabella is both more understandable in the the decipherment of specific human and narrative details, yet also less human and more constricted in its focus.

Finding the Line in Locus Amoenus

By Katelyn Swanson

As one can see in Thomson’s Seasons (1726-30) through his use of vivid descriptions of pastoral landscapes, there is a distinct connection between the arts and nature. Thomson uses specific elements such as "rolling hills" and "serene river" to reflect the classical paintings of the countryside. A home or other building’s landscape was just as important as the decorations inside the house, with many homes and buildings being designed around the landscape. However, there was a delicate balance in landscape between the garden and the wilderness.

This can be seen in John Constable’s Wivenhoe Park, Essex (1816), through the careful placements of the subjects throughout the painting. One can separate the painting into three distinct zones, each showing a different component of locus amoenus. The first section is closest to the viewer in the foreground, and depicts several cows grazing in a lush grass field. This field clearly represents the “wilderness” in nature as well as the more “natural” elements. Moving towards the middle of the painting, one can see men fishing together in a boat. Here, Constable is beginning to blend the wilderness into the garden. The presence of the people within this section of the painting introduces the concept of human interference with nature, through the very direct way the men are interacting with nature. Finally, towards the background of the painting, the viewer can see a grand house sitting atop a slope, in which the “garden” aspect of locus amoenus is fully introduced. These scenes are a great example of the juxtaposition of the cultivated garden versus the unkempt wilderness. One can see the clear line that is drawn in Constable’s painting between these two extremes, similar to how one notices this line in Thomson’s writing.

In lines eleven through twenty-five of Thomson’s Spring, one can see how he complicates the concept of locus amoenus as “the pleasant place.” These lines describe the transition from winter to spring, in which Thomson describes winter as “surly” and as having “ravag’d” the land (3-4). This imagery contradicts his later description of spring as a softer season. How can nature be both harsh and soft and still fit into the concept of locus amoenus? Like Constable, Thomson is attempting to blur these lines between garden and wilderness. Nature is rough and harsh, but also soft and refreshing, and by providing a clear line drawn between the two, both Thomson and Constable are able to express that both of the concepts can exist at the same time while still conveying locus amoenus.

Wordsworth, Constable, and Ordinary Experience

By Catherine Chuter

John Constable’s The Hay Wain (1821) and William Wordsworth's “Lines Composied a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey” (1798) both offer approaches to the Romantic tradition of engaging with nature. While Constable’s painting and Wordsworth’s poem develop from a shared commitment of ordinary experiences as a gateway to the sublime, they differ in method. Constable begins with an investigation of natural forms, and Wordsworth's poem leans on picturesque conventions and rhetorical reflection. Both works bypass political commentary, focusing instead on personal and aesthetic responses to nature. These differences and similarities prefigure John Ruskin’s more critical, rhetorical perspective in Modern Painters.

Constable’s The Hay Wain depicts a rural scene full of tranquility that shows ordinary people doing ordinary things. The painting illustrates a hay cart crossing a stream in idyllic countryside, surrounded by greenery and the cloud-filled sky. His observation of nature reflects his dedication to the truth of representation as the feelings evoked from the painting give importance to the seemingly ordinary situation. With the workers in the distance, a wagon making its way downstream to them, and the dog looking at the hay wain, Constable creates an authentic landscape. Unlike the Neoclassical traditions of idealized landscapes, his work is grounded in these specifics of the English countryside to celebrate its beauty. The painting has color values raised from the 18th century with its vibrant greens and reds, and the experienced brushstrokes create a sense of movement, inspiring the sensory experience of being within the landscape. The play of light and shadow, the movement in the sky, and the quiet presence of humans within the landscape suggest a harmony between nature and humanity, indicating awe without overstating the scene’s grandeur.

In the first stanza of Wordsworth’s “Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, on Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour, July 13, 1798,” the narrator reflects on the five years it has been since his last visit, meditating on the beauty of the countryside landscape and toward the sublime. The poem opens with picturesque imagery as he describes “these hedgerows, hardly hedge-rows,” “plots of cottage-ground,” and “wreathes of smoke / Sent up, in silence, from among the trees,” which uses vivid imagery to evoke both the sensory and emotional resonance of the scene. While this stanza of the poem is not as rooted in close, detailed observations as Constable’s painting, it similarly draws from ordinary experiences to achieve a transformation. The poem’s emphasis on memory and the link with nature is reminiscent of the timeless quality of Constable’s The Hay Wain as it depicts an everyday scene. Both works invite the viewer or reader to reflect on the relationship between humans and the natural world, presenting nature as a source of reflection and grounding, and Wordsworth’s focus on sensory experience parallels Constable’s visual detail.

The Hay Wain aligns with Ruskin’s call for “truth to nature” in Modern Painters, in which he rejects the artificial depiction of nature. Instead, Ruskin praises artists that capture the dynamic qualities of nature, as the way Constable does with the shifting clouds and playing with the light in the reflection of water. Although the painting’s aversion to political readings, would not align with Ruskin as he believed in the ethical obligation of societal commentary, and while “Tintern Abbey” is not as grounded in close observation of nature, being more picturesque, it can reflect the second volume of Modern Painters where Ruskin expanded on the role of the artistic imagination. In that volume, Ruskin is influenced by his journey to Italy and explores how the artist’s imagination transforms observations into a spiritual truth. Both Ruskin and Wordsworth, in this sense, suggest that nature is a source of emotional renewal. Wordsworth, like Constable, also does not reflect Ruskin’s shift from thinking about Romantic notions of art as a vehicle for individual imagination and emotion toward a more socially responsible art grounded in realism and accurate portrayal of contemporary life.

The Democratization of the Heroic Figure

By Chay Rosario

With the turn to genre and narrative painting in the early Victorian era, heroic figures were democratized compared to the mythic heroic figures in history painting of the eighteenth century and before. After Benjamin West’s Death of General Wolfe (1770-71), the theme of patriotism was maintained, but Sir David Wilkie made heroes of ordinary soldiers in Chelsea Pensioners Receiving the London Gazette Extraordinary of Thursday, June 22, 1815, Announcing the Battle of Waterloo (exhibited 1822). The new way to depict the heroic figure in this painting was as soldiers on a pension in a pleasant suburb, celebrating the final victory of the Napoleonic wars.

Wilkie's composition differs from that in West’s painting. Wilkie’s painting centers on the figures in the middle ground, who are arranged in a sort of arch. This allows for multiple figures to be seen and highlighted. No one figure is the main hero being depicted; in fact, all the soldiers are seen as heroic figures thanks to this composition choice. This grouping is anchored by a separate group on the far right. While the soldiers are celebrating in the center of the piece, this group to the right are seated and looking on at the soldiers. This serves to highlight the soldiers and shows non-soldiers looking on at what would now be considered heroes. This composition serves to elevate the status of the soldiers in the center of the piece.

This elevation of ordinary people to heroic figures also occurred  in poetry. In William Wordsworth’s “The Thorn,” the protagonist is elevated to a heroic figure through a sort of superstitious tale. In the poem, the narrator describes a thorn (bush) that sits atop a hill. The narrator goes on to describe the story of a woman named Martha Ray who goes to sit by this thorn. It is said that Martha Ray had fallen in love with a man and had planned to marry him. However, he married someone else, leaving her heartbroken and a bit mad. It was soon discovered that she was with child. However, no one knew what happened to the child. Martha's daily visits to the thorn caused people to think that she may have killed the child and buried it on the hill. The description of the woman and the whispers surrounding her story serve to elevate the character to a sort of legendary status.

While the term heroic figure has a connotation of famous and mythic persons, in this poem the term seems to take on a new meaning. The figure does not necessarily have to be one with a positive light cast upon it. Wordsworth adds a sense of mystery and intrigue to the character. The narrator repeatedly states that he does not know the answers as to why or how events occurred. The speculation of others in town are also mentioned. All of this adds to the elevation of the character to a legendary status.

The Sublime

By Kimber Peters

In A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, Burke specifies different categories of the sublime. In describing the category of obscurity, Burke explains that “when we know the full extent of any danger…a great deal of the apprehension vanishes” (59) and that darkness or obscurity is necessary for making something feel very dreadful (59). An example of obscurity can be seen in John Martin’s painting, The Deluge. An initial look at the painting leaves the viewer feeling confused and disoriented. The dark colors of the painting do not aid in orienting the viewer, rather they consume the sight, causing an initial state of uncertainty. This vast, overwhelming darkness complicates the viewing experience and sparks an initial sense of terror that Burke may describe as “dark, uncertain…terrible and sublime” (60). However, to truly be sublime, The Deluge must also spark a sense of delight within its viewer. Martin accomplishes this by utilizing light to highlight the center of the painting where humans can be seen, huddled together on a ledge. This gives viewers something to help orient themselves within the painting; this can be considered the point at which most apprehension disappears. Once this occurs, viewers can appreciate the bigger picture and experience the sublime.

Ruskin, Modern Painters

From Country House to City House: Place in the Pre-Raphaelite Picture of Modern Life

In the mid-1850s, when the Pre-Raphaelites took up stories relating to modern life and middle-class lifestyles, William Holman Hunt’s painting The Awakening Conscience (1853) and Dante Gabriel Rosetti’s poem “Jenny” (1848-69) portrayed prostitutes and the houses that they lived in as lesser than Victorian respectability, but capable of being more. When looking at the individual in comparison to the place that they inhabit, both of these pieces show either the fallen woman herself having an innate desire to be something or others seeing potential for more than what these women currently are.

The Awakening Conscience emphasizes emotional freedom and the desire to seek something more. The woman glances out the window and the greenery shown in the mirror. While a prostitute, she suddenly turns wide-eyed towards nature with a look that longs to be a part of it all, a grander awakening as she comes to accept that she could be doing more with herself, and has a short distraction from the man trying to keep her attention. In relation to houses and homes versus the land, and how the houses correlate with their owners, her home could be seen more as a designated prostitution house rather than a home of a standard young woman. With the realization she has in the painting, she could be well on her way to changing how she and her home are perceived and becoming a better person for herself as her eyes have opened, literally and metaphorically.

In “Jenny,” we see a similar scene with Jenny entrapped in her current life situation, by the narrator and other men who use her for prostitution. When it comes to the ideas of views of prostitutes within the 1800s, it shows a story similar to how prostitutes are treated today, with them being treated as lesser individuals than those who opt to use their services. In turn, her individual self as a prostitute is reflected within the land that surrounds her, as her home is notably different from his: “This room of yours, my Jenny, looks / A change from mine so full of books” (Rossetti 22-23). She’s  no academic scholar as he is, she isn’t virtuous and though she is beautiful she is seen as much lesser. In turn, the land that she occupies is also seen as lesser due to her job and how she is treated within her job.

The Pre-Raphaelites had strong devotion to understanding middle-class individuals and highlighting exploitation within their works. While the days of Croome Court had individuals whose large house and gardens led to great recognition from others, the PRB era had highlights of the opposite type of relation to the land. These two works instead highlight lower individuals and the land they occupy in order to show that while they are currently lower in class status and virtue, they still had capability to become much more than what they were. If they could free themselves, they could become greater individuals and in turn allow for greater appreciation for their own land as more than just a brothel.

Emergence of the Pre-Raphaelites

By Clarisse Declaro

In 1848, a group of young artists—John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and William Holman Hunt—formed the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (PRB) to challenge the established conventions and norms of academic art in Britain. They rejected the rigid ideals of the Royal Academy, which promoted imitating the grandeur of Raphael and High Renaissance art. Instead, they focused on sincerity, details, and vibrant naturalism of the earlier art, preferring the “bright colours, flat surfaces and what they thought of as the simple honesty of the fifteenth-century Italian…” (Barringer 9). One of their early major works is John Everett Millais’s painting "Isabella." The painting draws the viewer in with its intricate details such as the characters’ facial expressions, body language, and vibrant colors to depict the tension and drama of the story. Isabella (the central female figure) shows an expression of being calm yet sorrowful, showing her love for Lorenzo and her awareness of the tension around her while Lorenzo (her lover, seated near Isabella) with an expression gentle and reserved, showing his affection for Isabella and his unease in the brothers’ presence. On the other hand, the brothers exhibit arrogance and hostility. One brother leans aggressively on the table, pointing a finger in a menacing way, showing control and dominance. The painting also highlights the patterns of the floor, the folds in the clothes of Isabella, and even the small objects on the table to make the scene appear realistic. Millais’s "Isabella" captures the PRB’s mission by portraying the central conflict between love and cruelty through emotions and meticulous detail. Isabella and Lorenzo’s vulnerability contrasts with the brothers’ greed and hostility, creating tension enhanced by the setting in the painting and the use of bold colors. Inspired by Keats’s "Isabella," the painting critiques power and greed while reflecting the PRB’s commitment to their beliefs that art should tell meaningful stories, show deep emotions, and stay true to nature.

Rossetti's "Double Works" of Pre-Raphaelite Poetry and Painting

By Clarisse Declaro

The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (PRB) emerged in 1848 when a group of English artists and poets gathered around Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Everett Millais, and William Holman Hunt to initiate a revolutionary movement to reform art and literature. They rejected the conventions of prevailing academic styles and found inspiration in the art of the early Renaissance, before Raphael’s influence. The PRB viewed this earlier period as one of greater sincerity and authenticity. They produced artworks that showcased meticulous naturalism, vibrant colors, and a strong concentration on symbolism and moral narratives. These artworks both encapsulate their modern conception of individual subjectivity and their rebellion against the father figures of Raphael and Joshua Reynolds along with the institution of the Royal Academy and its Schools.  

Painted in 1875-78, a quarter-century after Dante Gabriel Rossetti published the first version of the corresponding poem in 1850, The Blessed Damozel is a central visual expression of the Pre-Raphaelite ideals explored in his poem of the same title. The painting depicts a symbolic representation of Rossetti’s interest in Medieval mysticism, spiritual longing, and the transcendence of earthly love. The central figure in the painting is the Blessed Damozel herself, portrayed as an ethereal presence. She is seated on a golden cloud in a celestial setting, gazing downward at the three other ethereal figures and the earthly realm. Rossetti’s Damozel represents the intersection of earthly love and the divine by creating the visual and symbolic combination of the two seemingly separate worlds.  The Damozel sits with her hands clasped in a gesture of contemplating her separation from the earthly world and the lover she left behind, conveying a sense of longing and devotion. The golden light that surrounds her depicts her ethereal beauty and divine presence, which contrasts with the darker earthly tone of the background. The Damozel appears detached from the earthly world but remains connected to it through her gaze and the cloth that hangs around her neck. The lilies that she’s holding represent purity and innocence, while the roses around her represent the sensual love for her lover.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti represents these ideals in his poem “The Blessed Damozel" in which he depicts the major themes of love, longing, and the relationship between the earthly and the divine. In the revised version of the poem, the lines “The blessed Damozel leaned out / From the gold bar of Heaven; / Her eyes were deeper than the depth / Of waters stilled at even” (lines 1-4) represent the Damozel as an ethereal figure who connects the divine and earthly world. Her way of leaning out form the heaven’s golden edge shows both her heavenly nature and her longing for the earthly world and her lover. This longing is further emphasized in the lines, “I wish that he were come to me, / For he will come,” she said” (lines 67-68) in which she expresses her deep desire for reunion with her lover. Her words convey her hope and unwavering faith that their love will transcend the boundaries between her celestial existence and her unfulfilled earthly love.

Dante Gabriel Rosssetti’s painting The Blessed Damozel and the poem exemplify the ideals of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (PRB) by illustrating the intersection of the emotional narratives with meticulous attention to details and vibrant naturalism. This reflects a parallel idea of how John Everett Millais’s Isabella represents emotional conflict between love and loss through the detailed features of Isabella’s emotion of sorrow, as she mourns the loss of her lover, Lorenzo and the setting that highlights the tension between the figures and their conflicting emotions. Similarly, Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s The Blessed Damozel rejects the ideals of Royal Academy by departing from its emphasis on idealized grandeur, historical themes, and the imitation of High Renaissance art. These ideals which are rooted in the Romantic period marked a departure from the rigid, and formal conventions of the Neoclassical era. Unlike the Royal Academy, which prioritized order, rationality, and the imitation of classical perfection, Romanticism focused on emotion, individuality, and the exploration of the inner life.

The Pre-Raphaelites, the Grand Style, and Sexuality

By Maggie Tregre

John Everett Millais’ Mariana (1851) depicts the central figure of Alfred Tennyson’s 1830 poem of the same title. Mariana waits and laments for her love as she begins to realize that he will not be coming back for her, leaving her isolated and alone. In the painting, Mariana is seen standing and looking off to the side through a window. Her gaze is cast outward as she looks for her lost love. What is most interesting about her figure is her posture. Mariana does not follow the graceful and feminine Raphaelite “S-curve,” such as the maiden in Charles Eastlake’s The Champion (1824). Instead, she is in an almost inverted position, with her arms bent backwards to grab at herself. Innocent viewers might understand this posture given the context of the poem. It seems like she is stretching her arms and back after she has spent time sitting and waiting and working at her embroidery, but in the nineteenth century, this image would have been extremely provocative due to this pose. Her posture seems to throw her own sexuality back onto herself, which was simply unacceptable at the time the painting was released.

In 1847-48, Dante Gabriel Rosetti wrote the first version of “Jenny,” which he revised several times prior to publication in 1870. This poem was equally if not even more shocking than Mariana was. Jenny is immediately characterized as “Fond of a kiss and fond of a guinea” in the poem’s second line. This line hints at the nature of Jenny’s life as a prostitute, since she is fond of sexual attention and greedy for money. She is also half-naked: “Your silk ungirdled and unlac’d / And warm sweets open to the waist.” Rosetti’s shocking poem would not fit with the Academy’s ideas about art or poetry. In the time of the Pre-Raphaelites, Jenny represents the new kind of woman who has no respectable position. She is a prostitute, who cannot fit into high society. Middle-class women were not supposed to think about sex.

Mariana and “Jenny” are just two examples of the elusiveness of women in art in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Women were denied access to the academies, but their figures were often the subjects of paintings. Male nudes were often studied and copied in an attempt to achieve classical styles, but female figures were not supposed to be aware of their own sexuality. Even Alexander Pope understood that there was a grey area when it came to women. His Moral Essays depict a man’s portrait in the Grand Style, but Pope's narrator claims (satirically) that women did not have enough character to be painted in the Grand Style. He presents the “idealized” woman as his friend, Martha Blount, but Martha still represents a woman of high status and good moral standing. She would never be associated with a woman like Mariana or Jenny. Pope also argued that each person, both men and women, were individuals, so the Grand Style was not adequate to capture the beauty of each unique individual. This idea extends through the Pre-Raphaelites, since each of these women are unique individuals, but their individuality does not fit within the acceptable roles for women in society.

The Pre-Raphaelite Opposition to Manufactured Art

By Jeffrey Moran

The teachings of the Royal Academy of Art would often limit the scholars to following a set structure of rules that would hinder the use of the artists’ imagination. The expectation of copying classical works superseded the individual’s ability to innovate and build on the fundamentals they were taught. This criticism of academic art is parallel to John Ruskin’s criticism of the manufactured goods of England during the Industrial Revolution, such as the furniture and “knick knacks” of the time. The works during the Industrial Revolution were particularly ornate and intricate in design; however, they were mass-produced. Their detail and designs, while of fine quality, were produced on a large scale rather than handcrafted. The “artisan” operated machines and levers to create their works. As Ruskin commented in The Stones of Venice (1851-53) machine operators had “the strength of them . . . given daily to be wasted into the finesses of a web, or racked into the exactness of a line” (637). Rather than allowing them to express their imagination, they were focused on fulfilling simple and methodical tasks. Similarly, at the Royal Academy, students were kept busy with copying and imitating the past rather than experimenting.

The furnishings depicted in Holman Hunt’s Awakening Conscience (1853) exemplify the over-complication of technical skill. The most striking piece is the upright piano engraved with designs all across its frame. The table behind the couple is also finely engraved along its edge and legs. Objects placed around the edges of the canvas seemingly only fill space. Underneath the table is a fallen roll of music, a cat, and a bird, all symbolic but also all mass-produced. At the foot of the piano rests a bundle of yarn and other patchwork. One could also consider the books atop the table, and knick-knacks adorning the piano as comments on the mass production of craftworks.

The gaze of the woman is also noteworthy, as she turns away from her lover and seems to ignore the mass-produced furniture and looks out the window into nature. This could be seen as Hunt following the idea of Nature being the guide in art rather than the technique and pedagogy of the academies. By restraining themselves to the confines of the methods in the academies, the Academy-trained artists become no more than the workers in the workshops producing the furniture decorating the man’s room in Awakening Conscience. They simply operate machines and levers, metaphorically, to create works that add meaningless detail in a desperate attempt to distinguish themselves, rather than letting their imagination work for themselves.

Travel and Truth to Nature in the Grand Style: Hunt's The Scapegoat

The Grand Tour in the 1700s was a popular form of travel that resulted in a new form of artwork, topographical painting. These watercolors were often created by noblemen who were encouraged to paint from their experiences while traveling. Topographical art accurately portrayed natural scenes in extensive detail. It was less concerned with higher meanings and more concerned with simply recording one’s travels in a factually sound way.

In the next century, John Ruskin (1819–1900) and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (PRB) also advocated the accurate representation of nature in art, though they argued that an accurate portrayal of nature is necessary not only in topograpical painting but also in oil paintings in the Grand Style. Notably, Ruskin and the PRB were not interested in reviving the topographical tradition and did not see themselves as connected with that tradition; rather, they aimed for authenticity in their attempt to achieve a high art. In their search for authenticity, the PRB began to paint “en plein air,” braving distressing weather conditions in order to depict a scene as it actually appeared.

This need for accuracy led some in the Brotherhood to travel so that they could depict foreign landscapes from their personal observations. A particularly attractive destination was the Holy Land. William Holman Hunt (1827–1910), a member of the PRB, is especially known for his religious paintings. His fixation on portraying the life of Jesus led him to the Holy Land, where he created several paintings, one of which is The Scapegoat (1854-56). This painting features typological symbolism, which is “a key method of biblical interpretation … where biblical events and individuals were understood as prefiguring future and more important events in the scriptures” (Barringer 140). The Scapegoat is a painting of a goat clearly in distress, as it seems to be stuck in the middle of nowhere, with the head of a (presumably) dead goat in the far left of the painting and other bones scattered throughout the rest of the scene. The goat seems weighed down and wears a red crown.

On one level, this painting “refers to the Jewish ritual of atonement for the sins of the people described in the book of Leviticus” (Barringer 140). According to the ritual, one goat is killed in the temple as a sacrifice. Another goat, the scapegoat, is left alive to reconcile with the Lord and will then bear the sins of the people and be released into the wilderness, where it will find a deserted place to bring the sins. Before it was set to wander, the scapegoat’s horns were adorned with a red piece of cloth. If the goat was later found with a white cloth, the people believed that God had accepted the reparations. Literally and realistically, the painting portrays the scapegoat from the Jewish ritual. In Hunt’s eyes, however, the story of the scapegoat is “a symbolic prefiguration of Christ’s passion” (Barringer 140).

So how does Hunt manage to portray a literal goat and Christ at the same time? One way he does this is with the placement and vibrancy of the red cloth adorning the goat’s horns. There are several ways in which a cloth can be attached to a goat’s horns, yet Hunt chose to paint the cloth in the place where a crown would sit, symbolizing Jesus’s crown of thorns. The cloth/crown is the only place in the painting where that vibrant shade of red is used, so it immediately catches the viewer’s eye and reminds the reader of the blood spilled from Jesus’s crown of thorns.

In terms of setting, the aim of his travel, Hunt chose the site of “the rocks of Usdum on the Dead Sea” because of its history of destruction and its overall feeling of bleakness (Barringer 142). This is a place Hunt traveled to and painted while he was in the Holy Land, so he was able to accurately portray the landscape. The painting is very detailed; the viewer can nearly feel the texture of the white sand and can appreciate the stark beauty of the barren space.

For his typological program as well as truth to nature, Hunt took inspiration from Ruskin’s writings. In Modern Painters III (1856), Ruskin writes that in the Grand Style “we find its whole power to consist in the clear expression of what is singular and particular” (28). Unlike Reynolds, Ruskin believes that including more details makes something more poetic/artistic. For example, the beautiful, pinkish purple, rocky mountains in the background of The Scapegoat are painted according to their particular nature and therefore do not resemble the idealized mountains one would find in traditional Grand Style paintings (i.e., mountains one would find in Europe). This lends authenticity to the painting. Though the exact scene being depicted is invented, the painting portrays exactly what it would look like if a scapegoat wandered to that part of the Dead Sea.

As Ruskin furthers his argument, he reasons that perhaps more than simply adding or subtracting details contributes to a piece of art being considered poetic or historical. He states: “There must be something either in the nature of the details themselves, or the method of using them, which invests them with poetical power or historical propriety” (Ruskin 29). In other words, to qualify for the Grand Style, the particular details in a piece of art must contribute meaning in some way, whether that is simply by their nature or the way in which they are used. For example, Hunt’s positioning of the red cloth/crown in The Scapegoat is a meaningful detail in its nature and its usage, as explained above.

To conclude his argument, Ruskin arrives at the following assertion: poetry is “‘the suggestion, by the imagination, of noble grounds for the noble emotions’” (30). Hunt’s painting, as mentioned above, accurately portrays the particular landscape of that area along the Dead Sea, though he used his imagination to create the scene he depicts. This mixture of imagination and authentic representation of the Holy Land and religious meaning present a noble ground for the noble emotion of “veneration” (Ruskin, 30).

Though The Scapegoat is not a topographical painting and does not depict a scene that Hunt could actually have observed, it contains such detail as to have fallen under the topographical category if it had been painted in the previous century. The viewer gains an accurate understanding of what that area along the Dead Sea truly looks like. This authenticity and attention to detail do more than teach the viewer, however; the details contribute to the spiritual meaning of the painting, which is exactly what the Pre-Raphaelites and Ruskin hoped to achieve in their creation of a new Grand Style.

Sublime versus the Material Sublime

By Kimber Peters

Burke defines the sublime as being “productive of [fear,] the strongest emotion which the mind is capable of feeling” (39). Throughout A Philosophical Enquiry, his descriptions of the sublime focus heavily on aspects of the world he believed were best at creating sublime experiences for audiences. Of these aspects, Burke says that tapping into one’s emotions, fears, and imagination is the best way to develop sublime artwork. While Burke focused mainly on extraordinary subjects, later artists such as the Pre-Raphaelites transformed the expression of the sublime by shifting its focus to the real, tangible world. This shift created a new interpretation of the sublime, referred to as the material sublime. Smith describes the material sublime as being a “juxtaposition of romance and realism, or sensibility and detachment” (302) which serves as a reminder that “[imagination] should arise from the sublime in the world rather than from the mundane or weird, and they should arise from external matter, not from subjective feeling” (303). John Keats’ poem Isabella and Holman Hunt’s painting Isabella and the Pot of Basil demonstrate this balance between realism and sensibility by showcasing narratives that are significantly grounded in realistic, worldly matter. At a glance, Hunt’s painting Isabella and the Pot of Basil does not appear to be productive of intense feelings Burke believes all sublime art should be capable of eliciting from audiences. To understand how Hunt’s painting Isabella and the Pot of Basil expresses the sublime, consider it in relation to the poem Isabella. The painting depicts Isabella watering her pot of basil, which houses Lorenzo’s severed head, with her tears. Despite the disturbing and saddening fates of both Isabella and her lover, Hunt’s painting depicts the scene in the particularized Pre-Raphaelite manner without dramatic displays of passion. Isabella’s face is rather emotionless; however, viewers can only assume that she is embracing the pot with tender affection, given the way she gently caresses it with her fingers as she gazes longingly into the distance. The skull on the pot signals Lorenzo's death; however, Hunt does not exaggerate the tragedy that is already apparent within the scene. This painting presents viewers with a balance of romance and realism which is foundational to the material sublime.

Keats also prioritizes this balance of romance and realism in his poem Isabella. According to Smith, juxtaposition is one of the techniques that Keats uses to strike this balance (305). In order to control readers’ reactions to the discovery of Lorenzo’s body, Keats pairs the horror with beautiful language and descriptions which mitigate the terror of the scene. An example of this beautiful language can be found in part XLVI of the poem where, upon discovering Lorenzo’s gravesite, Isabella gazes at his “pale limbs at the bottom of [the] crystal well” (Keats 175). While it is disturbing to imagine Lorenzo’s pale limbs, the image of the crystal well is pleasing and possibly even soothing. Additionally, part XLVII has an abundance of poetic language which paints a beautifully tragic picture of Isabella mourning (Keats 175). Thanks to this technique, the scene does not overwhelm readers or trigger extreme, intense emotional responses. The beauty dilutes the horror, allowing readers the space to process the sublime experience before responding to the poem sensibly. Keats’ focus on the tangible aspects of the world is also noticeable in transformation of Isabella as her “love sickness turns to real sickness” (Smith 305). As Isabella’s love for Lorenzo consumes her, she begins obsessively watering her beloved basil pot with her tears. The narrative pivots focus from Isabella’s internal emotions to her visible, tangible misery which is also depicted in Hunt’s painting; this change mirrors the shift in the sublime aesthetic as artists began balancing romance and realism. Instead of the spectacular, Keats and Hunt create sublime experiences in a realistic, detailed world which all people are familiar with. The material sublime, which is a major shift from Burke’s ideas of the sublime, better represents the priorities the of Pre-Raphaelites, who believed that all art had to reflect the actual world and the experiences of common people.

Works Cited
Burke, Edmund. A Philosophical Enquiry Into the Sublime and Beautiful. Routledge, 2008.
Smith, Louise Z. “The Material Sublime: Keats and ‘Isabella.’” Studies in Romanticism, vol. 13, no. 4, 1974, pp. 299–311.