Picture perfect, old chap

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THE RECOGNIZABLE tone of the "English picturesque," flourishing around 1800, celebrates local landscapes and the native eyes that would behold them. Paintings and drawings, of the sort that circulated as the prints in the elaborately illustrated books of the day, draw from Dutch and Italian models--going back to the light-stunned landscapes of Claude Lorraine and "Arcadian places" of Nicolas Poussin--but are free of the grand symbols and extreme drama of high Romantic painting, such as the "sublime" work of J.M.W. Turner.

John Constable, whom French artists regarded as an early exponent of Romantic painting, began as a 'topographical" painter of country houses about the time William Wordsworth was writing his poems on the countryside of the Lake District. Poems, prints, and parks, then, were of a piece celebrating nature, and the poetic sensitivity required to enjoy it. British country estates and park landscapes sought an informality cultivated and planned, as outdoor spots for a gentleman's contemplation--in opposition to the formal plots laid out on the continent. This came well before Europeans appreciated natural wilderness, but also was a far cry from the formal gardens on the mainland from the century before.

Prints and drawings sought to capture the experience of place or, in turn, to propagate a vision of what such a delightful spot on Earth could look like, with devotion to geographical and even botanical specificity. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, writing on Wordsworth's poetry, sums up the goal of the picturesque as a wish to "give the charm of novelty to things of everyday."

The English aristocracy's love of the countryside is revealed in "British Picturesque Landscapes," a focus installation of engravings of scenic Great Britain from late 18th- and early 19th-century books, including three engravings of Turner paintings. The exhibition is divided into four display cases. The first will contain engravings after works by Turner, including one from "The Turner Gallery: A Series of One Hundred and Twenty Engravings from the Works of the Late J.M.W. Turner" (1878). The second case presents travel books authored by William Gilpin, featuring bucolic country scenes of Wales, the Scottish Highlands, and along the River Wye. The third case includes charming landscapes and seascapes from books by Samuel Ireland, Louis Simond, and Rudolph Ackermann. The final case features prints of country manors. These landscapes show how humans intervene to alter and recreate nature. On view are two books by John Claudius Loudon, with before-and-after engravings used by this landscape architect to promote his designs.

"British Picturesque Landscapes" is on display through Feb. 24 at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

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