Famous Figures of the English Landscape Movement

        18^th Century English landscape artists were just that- artists. They wanted to design landscapes that looked like they were right out of a painting themselves. English landscapes were thought to break the traditional thought of a confined garden and open it up to the world around the viewer. They were vast and natural, showing the fluidity and expression that nature has in and of itself. It diverged from the baroque period by taking away the controlling aspect of humans in the garden, and showed a different side, allowing nature to take its rightful place in garden art.  There were a handful of famous English landscape artists of the 18^th century: Charles Bridgeman, William Kent, and Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown. For a brief background on the English Landscape Movement and numerous examples of gardens in this style, please refer to this link (http://www.britainexpress.com/History/landscape_gardens.htm).

Charles Bridgeman was a major artist at the onset of the English landscape movement. He started to take the formality out of the baroque period gardens, and redesign the style to become more like the English landscapes we know today. However, he did not completely revolutionize the art. He did keep some of the formal structures of previous gardens, such as the main axis, parterres, and geometric symmetry. Yet he did begin to transition in the newer art form through use of lawns, amphitheaters, vantage points and Ha-Has. He wanted to break the rules of formality, and so he did with the garden at Stowe. There he emphasized the use of the landscape around the garden to be seen, and not hidden away (thus the use of the Ha-Ha’s dip in the field, as pictured below). (https://austenonly.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/p1100432.jpg)

William Kent was another master of his time, his reputation exceeding the work of Bridgeman’s. Kent was first, and foremost, a painter. He painted and sketched landscapes to make them look beautiful. Oscar Wilde was quoted saying “Life imitates art far more than art imitates life.” Kent must have believed that to be true, because he would take the beautiful sketching he drew and make them a reality. The landscapes he made were meant to be beautiful: a work of art. In Kent’s style, they were much less formal than Bridgeman’s because he needed them to fit into his “pictureframe imagination.” One example of his gardens, Rousham, not only expressed beauty in sight, but also in mind. He designed the garden to make you experience different feelings from place to place. The informality leads the viewer to the unexpected journey ahead, filled with classical inspiration as well as allegory.

(http://www.rousham.org/images/gardens/venus_vale.jpg)

‘Capability’ Brown was often hailed as one of the greatest English Landscape gardeners of the 18^th century, even more so than Bridgeman and Kent. Brown emphasized informality, which can be seen in his famous garden at Chatsworth. He strayed far from the baroque lines and main axes of the period long before him. In this fashion, he made the layout of his landscapes curved, in almost every aspect. Hills, fields, hedges, and rivers were all curved to express informality. Brown wanted to keep away from what was already known about gardens, and push the limits even more. His gardens were barely what people would consider a ‘garden.’ Brown would include trees few and far between in his landscapes, and flower beds were not used in excess. He still emphasized the use of landscape and incorporating scenery in his landscapes; he used his predecessor’s Ha-ha design to include the countryside in his landscapes. 

(http://malcolmkirk.com/assets/image/images/Chatsworth.jpg) (http://www.bootsandpaws.co.uk/pics/chatsworthh/chatsworth4b.jpg)

(http://www.microlightflight-lessons.com/userimages/chatsworth%20house.jpg)