During the Georgian era, new aesthetic categories were established. Beauty is the most obvious aesthetic category that we use, but another is the Picturesque. The picturesque was a standard of taste that related to the landscape. What do we mean when we say that something is picturesque? We’re saying it looks like a painting. The word picturesque means ‘in the manner of the painters.’

Landscape painters like Claude Lorraine (1600-82) or Nicholas Poussin (1593-1665) produced carefully-contrived compositions like the example shown below. This is an Arcadian fantasy, with an evocative Classical ruin nestled in the landscape and a vista fading away into the distance, suffused with golden light. When the aristocrats on the Grand Tour saw a landscape that reminded them of paintings like this they described it as picturesque.  But they went one step further. They began to create landscape gardens in the style of these paintings. Landscape gardeners like Capability Brown were employed to reshape the topography to suit this new aesthetic standard. The gardens unfolded in episodic vistas based on paintings. They also designed architectural set-pieces – whimsical garden buildings that echoed the ruins they had seen on the Grand Tour.

Stowe in Buckinghamshire is one of the best landscape gardens, featuring numerous whimsical garden buildings in a range of different styles. This is the Temple of British Worthies by William Kent (1733). This is a Classical monument featuring a pantheon of British cultural heroes, including the architect Inigo Jones. There is also a Palladian Bridge, which has the same tripartite division as the Palladian House, but it is suspended over the water. These gardens were like a miniature Grand Tour.

The Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio was a great inspiration in Britain, but it was gradually recognised that Palladio’s buildings were based on Roman prototypes, and interest began to shift to the original Roman buildings. Roman ruins had been illustrated by the Italian artist and archaeologist Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720-78) in a series of brooding, grandiose engravings. Piranesi helped to convince people that Roman architecture was superior, grander and nobler than Palladio’s work. Piranesi’s images were not strictly accurate: he expanded the scale and made them look monumental. In fact, when people saw the actual ruins they were often disappointed because they were used to Piranesi’s engravings.  Roman influence began to supercede that of the Renaissance.

Gibside in County Durham was one of a number of 18th century pleasure gardens that aristocrats created. This is a Palladian chapel in Gibside. Here the form of the Palladian villa has been adapted for use as a chapel, which is incredibly rare. This was designed by James Paine. It’s very similar to Chiswick House but it was built as a mausoleum - the bodies of the patrons are interred in the basement. It has a severe dome raised on a drum with swag decoration. The roofline is arrayed with funerary urns, indicating that it was designed as a mortuary chapel.

Conclusion

Aristocratic patrons reshaped their landscapes according to their own tastes. They also used their gardens to experiment with different architectural styles by building small garden buildings. Thus, the gardens functioned laboratories of taste.

Please see my related articles:

https://knoji.com/architects-to-a-diocese-dunn-and-hansom-of-newcastle-1/

https://knoji.com/palladianism-the-incredible-influence-of-andrea-palladio/

https://knoji.com/the-greek-revival/

https://knoji.com/romantic-art-theory/