William Gilpin (4 June 1724 – 5 April 1804) was an English artist,

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britain ...

cleric, schoolmaster and author. He is best known as a travel writer and as one of those who originated the idea of the

picturesque Picturesque is an aesthetic ideal introduced into English cultural debate in 1782 by William Gilpin in ''Observations on the River Wye, and Several Parts of South Wales, etc. Relative Chiefly to Picturesque Beauty; made in the Summer of the Year ...

.Malcolm Andrews
"Gilpin, William (1724–1804)"
''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography''. Retrieved 20 March 2016 Oxford, UK: OUP, 2004, pay-walled.

Life

Gilpin was born in

Cumberland Cumberland ( ) is a historic county in the far North West England. It covers part of the Lake District as well as the north Pennines and Solway Firth coast. Cumberland had an administrative function from the 12th century until 1974. From 19 ...

, the son of Captain John Bernard Gilpin, a soldier and amateur artist. From an early age he was an enthusiastic sketcher and collector of prints, but while his brother

Sawrey Gilpin Sawrey Gilpin (30 October 1733 – 8 March 1807) was an English animal painter, illustrator, and etcher who specialised in paintings of horses and dogs. He was made a Royal Academician. Life and work Gilpin was born in Carlisle in Cumbr ...

became a professional painter, William opted for a career in the church, graduating from

Queen's College, Oxford The Queen's College is a constituent college of the University of Oxford, England. The college was founded in 1341 by Robert de Eglesfield in honour of Philippa of Hainault. It is distinguished by its predominantly neoclassical architecture, ...

in 1748. While still at Oxford, Gilpin anonymously published ''A Dialogue upon the Gardens... at Stow in Buckinghamshire'' (1748). Part guidebook to

Stowe Stowe may refer to: Places United Kingdom *Stowe, Buckinghamshire, a civil parish and former village **Stowe House **Stowe School * Stowe, Cornwall, in Kilkhampton parish * Stowe, Herefordshire, in the List of places in Herefordshire * Stowe, Linc ...

, part essay on

aesthetics Aesthetics, or esthetics, is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of beauty and taste, as well as the philosophy of art (its own area of philosophy that comes out of aesthetics). It examines aesthetic values, often expressed thr ...

, it shows that Gilpin had already begun to develop his ideas on the picturesque. Unusually for the time, Gilpin showed an appreciation of wild and rugged mountain scenery, perhaps rooted in his Cumbrian upbringing. Even more unusually, he expressed ideas about the perception of beauty which were purely aesthetic and often divorced from other qualities of the object viewed, such as morality or utility. After working as curate, Gilpin became master, and from 1755 headmaster at

Cheam Cheam () is a suburb of London, England, south-west of Charing Cross. It is divided into North Cheam, Cheam Village and South Cheam. Cheam Village contains the listed buildings Lumley Chapel and the 16th-century Whitehall. It is adjacent to tw ...

School. He was an enlightened educationalist, instituting a system of fines rather than corporal punishment and encouraging the boys to keep gardens and in-school shops. His broad intention was to promote "uprightness and utility" and give his pupils "a miniature of the world they were afterwards to enter." Gilpin stayed at Cheam until 1777, when he moved with his wife Margaret to become Vicar of

Boldre Boldre is a village and civil parish in the New Forest district of Hampshire, England. It is in the south of the New Forest National Park, above the broadening (estuary) of the Lymington River, two miles (3 km) north of Lymington. In the 2 ...

in the

New Forest The New Forest is one of the largest remaining tracts of unenclosed pasture land, heathland and forest in Southern England, covering southwest Hampshire and southeast Wiltshire. It was proclaimed a royal forest by William the Conqueror, featu ...

Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants) is a ceremonial county, ceremonial and non-metropolitan county, non-metropolitan counties of England, county in western South East England on the coast of the English Channel. Home to two major English citi ...

. While there he took as a child pupil the future poet Caroline Anne Bowles. Another pupil was his nephew, the painter

William Sawrey Gilpin William Sawrey Gilpin (4 October 1762 – 4 April 1843) was an English artist and drawing master, and in later life a landscape designer. Biography Gilpin was born at Scaleby Castle, Cumbria on 4 October 1762, the son of the animal painter Saw ...

. He was succeeded at Cheam by his son, another William Gilpin. William Gilpin died at

, Hampshire, on 5 April 1804 and was buried there on 13 April. He was survived by his wife, Margaret (1725 – 14 July 1807), to whom he was married for over 50 years. His older son, John Bernard, became British Consul for

Rhode Island Rhode Island (, like ''road'') is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is the List of U.S. states by area, smallest U.S. state by area and the List of states and territories of the United States ...

. His two daughters predeceased him.

Picturesque

In 1768 Gilpin published a popular ''Essay on Prints'', where he defined the picturesque as "that kind of beauty which is agreeable in a picture" and began to expound his "principles of picturesque beauty", based largely on his knowledge of

landscape A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or man-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. A landscape includes the ...

painting Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ...

. During the late 1760s and 1770s, Gilpin travelled extensively in the summer holidays and applied his principles to the landscapes he saw, committing his thoughts and spontaneous sketches to notebooks. Penrith castle 18th-century

Gilpin's tour journals circulated in manuscript to friends such as the poet

William Mason William, Willie, or Willy Mason may refer to: Arts and entertainment *William Mason (poet) (1724–1797), English poet, editor and gardener *William Mason (architect) (1810–1897), New Zealand architect *William Mason (composer) (1829–1908), Ame ...

and a wider circle including

Thomas Gray Thomas Gray (26 December 1716 – 30 July 1771) was an English poet, letter-writer, classics, classical scholar, and professor at Pembroke College, Cambridge, Pembroke College, Cambridge. He is widely known for his ''Elegy Written in a Country ...

Horace Walpole Horatio Walpole (), 4th Earl of Orford (24 September 1717 – 2 March 1797), better known as Horace Walpole, was an English writer, art historian, man of letters, antiquarian, and Whigs (British political party), Whig politician. He had Strawb ...

and

King George III George III (George William Frederick; 4 June 173829 January 1820) was King of Great Britain and of Ireland from 25 October 1760 until the union of the two kingdoms on 1 January 1801, after which he was King of the United Kingdom of Great Br ...

. In 1782, at Mason's instigation, Gilpin published ''Observations on the River Wye and several parts of South Wales, etc. relative chiefly to Picturesque Beauty; made in the summer of the year 1770'' (London 1782). This was illustrated with plates based on Gilpin's sketches, etched by his nephew

using the newly invented

aquatint Aquatint is an intaglio printmaking technique, a variant of etching that produces areas of tone rather than lines. For this reason it has mostly been used in conjunction with etching, to give both lines and shaded tone. It has also been used h ...

process. There followed ''Observations'' on the Lake District and the West of England, and after his move to Boldre, ''Remarks on Forest Scenery, and other woodland Views...'' (London, 1791). Gilpin's watercolour technique has been compared with that of

Alexander Cozens Alexander Cozens (1717–1786) was a British landscape painter in watercolours, born in Russia, in Saint Petersburg. He taught drawing and wrote treatises on the subject, evolving a method in which imaginative drawings of landscapes could be wor ...

. Both texture and composition were important in a "correctly picturesque" scene. The texture should be "rough", "intricate", "varied" or "broken", without obvious straight lines. The composition should work as a unified whole, incorporating several elements: a dark "foreground" with a "front screen" or "side screens", a brighter middle "distance", and at least one further, less distinctly depicted "distance". A ruined abbey or castle would add "consequence". A low viewpoint that tended to emphasise the "sublime" was always preferable to a prospect from on high. While Gilpin allowed that nature was good at producing textures and colours, he saw it as rarely capable of creating the perfect composition. Some extra help from the artist, perhaps a carefully placed tree, was usually required. Unlike other travel writers of his time such as

Thomas Pennant Thomas Pennant (14 June Old Style, OS 172616 December 1798) was a Welsh natural history, naturalist, traveller, writer and antiquarian. He was born and lived his whole life at his family estate, Downing Hall near Whitford, Flintshire, in Wales ...

, Gilpin included little history and few facts or anecdotes. Even Gilpin's descriptions can seem quite vague, concentrating on how scenery conformed to picturesque principles rather than its specifics. In a much-quoted passage, Gilpin took things to an extreme, suggesting that "a mallet judiciously used" might render the insufficiently ruinous gable of

Tintern Abbey Tintern Abbey ( cy, Abaty Tyndyrn ) was founded on 9 May 1131 by Walter de Clare, Lord of Chepstow. It is situated adjacent to the village of Tintern in Monmouthshire, on the Welsh bank of the River Wye, which at this location forms the bor ...

more picturesque. In the same work he criticised

John Dyer John Dyer (1699 – 15 December 1757) was a painter and Welsh poet who became a priest in the Church of England.Shaw, Thomas B. ''A Complete Manual of English Literature''. Ed. William Smith. New York: Sheldon & Co., 1872. 372. Print. He was m ...

's description of the view from

Grongar Hill Grongar Hill is located in the Welsh county of Carmarthenshire and was the subject of a loco-descriptive poem by John Dyer. Published in two versions in 1726, during the Augustan period, its celebration of the individual experience of the landsc ...

for giving a distant object too much detail. Such passages were easy pickings for satirists such as

Jane Austen Jane Austen (; 16 December 1775 – 18 July 1817) was an English novelist known primarily for her six major novels, which interpret, critique, and comment upon the British landed gentry at the end of the 18th century. Austen's plots of ...

, as she showed in ''

Northanger Abbey ''Northanger Abbey'' () is a coming-of-age Coming of age is a young person's transition from being a child to being an adult. The specific age at which this transition takes place varies between societies, as does the nature of the ...

'' and other novels and works. (Elizabeth Bennet, in ''

Pride and Prejudice ''Pride and Prejudice'' is an 1813 novel of manners by Jane Austen. The novel follows the character development of Elizabeth Bennet, the dynamic protagonist of the book who learns about the repercussions of hasty judgments and comes to appreci ...

'', notably refuses to join Mr. Darcy and the Bingley sisters in a stroll with the teasing observation, "You are charmingly group'd, and... the picturesque would be spoilt by admitting a fourth.") Although he came in for criticism, Gilpin had published at exactly the right time. Improved road communications and travel restrictions in continental Europe produced a burst of British domestic tourism in the 1780s and 1790s. Many such ''picturesque'' tourists were intent on sketching, or at least discussing what they saw in terms of landscape painting. Gilpin's works were the ideal companions for the new generation of travellers; they were written specifically for them and not intended as comprehensive travel guides.

Legacy

Although Gilpin sometimes commented on designed landscapes, the picturesque remained for him an essential set of rules for depicting nature. It was left to others, notably

Richard Payne Knight Richard Payne Knight (11 February 1751 – 23 April 1824) of Downton Castle in Herefordshire, and of 5 Soho Square,History of Parliament biography London, England, was a classical scholar, connoisseur, archaeologist and numismatist best k ...

Uvedale Price Sir Uvedale Price, 1st Baronet (baptised 14 April 1747 – 14 September 1829), author of the ''Essay on the Picturesque, As Compared with the Sublime and The Beautiful'' (1794), was a Herefordshire landowner who was at the heart of the 'Picturesqu ...

and

Thomas Johnes Thomas Johnes FRS (1 September 1748 – 23 April 1816) was a Member of Parliament, landscape architect, farmer, printer, writer and social benefactor. He is best known for his development of the Hafod Estate in Wales. Johnes was born in Lud ...

, to develop Gilpin's ideas into more comprehensive theories of the picturesque and apply these more generally to landscape design and architecture. Ultimately, these grand theories of wild natural beauty gave way to the tamer, more commercialised picturesque of the mid-19th century, though Gilpin's works remained popular and several new editions appeared with additions by John Heaviside Clark. Gilpin also lives on as the model for the satirist

William Combe William Combe (25 March 174219 June 1823) was a British miscellaneous writer. His early life was that of an adventurer, his later was passed chiefly within the "rules" of the King's Bench Prison. He is chiefly remembered as the author of ''Th ...

's clever but cruel ''Tour of Dr Syntax in Search of the Picturesque'' (1809), brilliantly illustrated by

Thomas Rowlandson Thomas Rowlandson (; 13 July 175721 April 1827) was an English artist and caricaturist of the Georgian Era, noted for his political satire and social observation. A prolific artist and printmaker, Rowlandson produced both individual social an ...

. This poor curate sets off on his straggly mare Grizzle in a quest for picturesque scenery, often (and usually to his discomfort) oblivious to the realities of the world around him. As well as his ''picturesque'' writing, Gilpin published several works on moral and religious subjects, including biographies of

Hugh Latimer Hugh Latimer ( – 16 October 1555) was a Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge, and Bishop of Worcester during the Reformation, and later Church of England chaplain to King Edward VI. In 1555 under the Catholic Queen Mary I he was burned at the s ...

Thomas Cranmer Thomas Cranmer (2 July 1489 – 21 March 1556) was a leader of the English Reformation and Archbishop of Canterbury during the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI and, for a short time, Mary I. He helped build the case for the annulment of Henry' ...

and

John Wycliffe John Wycliffe (; also spelled Wyclif, Wickliffe, and other variants; 1328 – 31 December 1384) was an English scholastic philosopher, theologian, biblical translator, reformer, Catholic priest, and a seminary professor at the University of O ...

. Some of the profit from his writing went on good works in his parish, including the endowment of a school at Boldre that now bears his name. Many of the manuscripts of his tours, including unpublished or recently published material, are now housed in the

Bodleian Library The Bodleian Library () is the main research library of the University of Oxford, and is one of the oldest libraries in Europe. It derives its name from its founder, Sir Thomas Bodley. With over 13 million printed items, it is the second- ...

, Oxford. Gilpin is one of eight travellers included in

Nicholas Crane Nicholas Crane (born 6 May 1954) is an English geographer, explorer, writer and broadcaster. Since 2004 he has written and presented four television series for BBC Two: ''Coast'', ''Great British Journeys'', '' Map Man'' and ''Town''. Early ...

's '' Great British Journeys''.

Works

On the picturesque

*''Dialogue upon the gardens of the Right Honourable the Lord Viscount Cobham, at Stow in Buckinghamshire'' (1748) *''An essay on prints: containing remarks upon the principles of picturesque beauty; the different kinds of prints; and the characters of the most noted masters'' (1768) *''Observations on the River Wye, and several parts of South Wales, etc. relative chiefly to picturesque beauty; made in the summer of the year 1770'' (1782) *''Observations, relative chiefly to picturesque beauty, made in the year 1772, on several parts of England; particularly the mountains, and lakes of Cumberland, and Westmoreland'' (1786) *''Observations, relative chiefly to picturesque beauty, made in the year 1776, on several parts of Great Britain; particularly the High-lands of Scotland'' (1789) *''Remarks on forest scenery, and other woodland views (relative chiefly to picturesque beauty), illustrated by the scenes of New Forest in Hampshire'' (1791) *''Three essays: on picturesque beauty; on picturesque travel; and on sketching landscape: to which is added a poem, On landscape painting'' (1792) *''Observations on the Western parts of England, relative chiefly to picturesque beauty; to which are added a few remarks on the picturesque beauties of the Isle of Wight'' (1798) *''Observations on the coasts of Hampshire, Sussex, and Kent, relative chiefly to picturesque beauty, relative to Picturesque Beauty, made in the Summer of the year 1774'' (1804) *''Two essays: one on the author's mode of executing rough sketches; the other on the principles on which they are composed. To these are added, three plates of figures by S. Gilpin'' (1804) *''Observations on several parts of the counties of Cambridge, Norfolk, Suffolk, and Essex. Also on several parts of North Wales, relative to picturesque beauty in two tours, the former made in ... 1769, the latter in ... 1773'' (1809)

Biographies

*''The life of Bernard Gilpin: collected from his life written by George Carleton, bishop of Chichester, from other printed accounts of the times he lived in, from original letters, and other authentic records'' (1752) *''The life of Hugh Latimer, Bishop of Worcester'' (1755) *''The lives of John Wicliff; and of the most eminent of his disciples; Lord Cobham, John Huss, Jerome of Prague, and Zisca'' (1765) *''The life of Thomas Cranmer, archbishop of Canterbury'' (1784) *
Memoirs
of

Josias Rogers Captain Josias Roberts (1755-24 April 1795), was a British naval officer who fought in the American Revolutionary War and the campaigns in Grenada and Martinique. Life Born at Lymington, Hampshire, Rogers' father seems to have had a large intere ...

, Esq., Commander of his Majesty's Ship, Quebec'' (1808)

Religious works

*''Lectures on the catechism of the Church of England'' (1779) *''Two sermons'' (1788) *''An exposition of the New Testament, intended as an introduction to the study of the Scriptures, by pointing out the leading Sense and Connection of the sacred writers'' (1790) *''Three dialogues on the amusements of clergymen'' (1796) *''Moral contrasts; or, the power of religion, exemplified under different characters'' (1798) *''Sermons to a country congregation; to which are added, a few hints for sermons, intended chiefly for the use of the younger clergy'' (1799) *''Dialogues, on various subjects'' (1807)

References

External links

The Literary Encyclopedia
* * *Full text o
''William Gilpin: Observations of the River Wye, and several parts of South Wales''
on the sit
''A Vision of Britain through Time''
with links to the places mentioned.
Digital facsimile of 1792 third edition of ''Observations''
at the National Gallery of Art Library *Full text of his correspondence with his grandson William edited by Alain Kerherv�

*Full text of his letter-writing manual, now edited by Alain Kerhervé and publishe

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gilpin, William 1724 births 1804 deaths 18th-century English Anglican priests English biographers English educational theorists English travel writers Anglican writers English Anglican theologians English watercolourists Alumni of The Queen's College, Oxford People from Cumberland People educated at St Bees School 18th-century Anglican theologians New Forest folklore