The Rise of British Landscape Painting 1700-1820

Discover how landscapists rose from having a peripheral and humble status within the British art scene to achieve celebrity status, their work discussed and admired by critics and public at home and abroad. We explore those features of the worlds of art and society that contributed to this change: the growth of institutions for the display and sale of art, the growth of an art public, interconnections between art and entertainment, the rise of tourism, and growing fascination with the natural world during the Age of Enlightenment. We also examine the work of artists most closely involved in the rise of British landscape art, including Paul Sandby’s topographical ‘map work’, Alexander Cozens experimental ‘blot’ drawings, Gainsborough’s rural idylls, Turner’s sublime Alpine views and Constable’s early efforts to create a simpler, more natural type of landscape.