Description
Book SynopsisThis book considers what prints tell us about the development of the landscape garden in 18th- and early 19th- century Britain. They formed a significant part of the expanding machinery of mass communication and could thus influence taste and spread ideas. This could lead to propaganda, or at least creation of an image the owner of a property found desirable, and reality was consequently often compromised. The illusion of actuality could be achieved by adjustments and techniques employed by artists generally. Even if not entirely representational, a print may reveal much about fashions and attitudes towards the landscape garden. At their best they powerfully convey the atmosphere of a garden as well as the perception and possible idealisation of it. The book breaks new ground, including discussion of techniques of producing a print, marketing, categories of print, and studies of the greatest engravers and a few select gardens that prints illuminate particularly well. Changes can be observed both in the developments in print-making and in the journey of the landscape garden. With 220 prints of the period to illustrate the text, all aspects of the subject are brought to the reader's attention.
Trade ReviewMichael Symes's book is so sumptuously designed and produced in hardback landscape format that it warrants a slip case. It teems with illustrations, many in colour, almost all from the author's collection, reflecting his considerable scholarship, its emphasis firmly centred on the 18th century. * Country Life *
Table of ContentsPreface 1 Image and Propaganda 2 Printomania 3 Pattern Books 4 Royal Landscapes 5 Stowe 6 Chiswick 7 The London Pleasure Gardens 8 Nuneham Courtenay 9 William Woollett 10 Luke Sullivan, Francois Vivares and Anthony Walker 11 Horace Walpole 12 The Gazetteers 13 Sets of Seats 14 The Picturesque 15 A Miscellany of Prints Select reading Index
