Sydney University Museums

But cautiously will taste its stores reveal ;
Its greatest art is aptly to conceal ;
To lead, with secret guile, the prying sight
To where component parts may best unite
And form one beauteous, nicely blended whole,
To charm the eye and captivate the soul.
Richard Payne Knight 1795

5.1: The Picturesque

In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries the picturesque dominated British artistic circles. Somewhat confusingly it was casually used to describe subjects as varied as trees, a group of mountains, a village square, a medieval ruin, or a river. This casual usage was continued to the point where the general impression of the word today is one of images possessing pleasing and interesting qualities of form and colour but not achieving the heights of beauty or art. This belies the fact that the picturesque was an important indicator of changes in European approaches to landscape.

Rather than relying on classical or religious subjects, the picturesque encouraged artists to study the details of a particular place. Artists initially selected details from different locations on their canvasses to construct the perfect view. By the beginning of the nineteenth century theorists began to argue that it was possible for a picturesque view to exist in nature that did not need its elements rearranged by the artist. This gave photographers well versed in the principles of the picturesque an opportunity to fix a perfect scene on photographic paper.

Some of the best photographers, such as Roger Fenton, Russell Sedgfield, William England and George Washington Wilson, showed immense skill in just this style of composition when constructing their stereo photographs.

5.2 Pont Aberglaslyn, Wales

William Gilpin, in his book Observations on the Mountains and Lakes of Cumberland and Westmoreland, first published in 1786, identified eight discernable elements in the construction of the picturesque image: mountains, lakes, broken ground, woods, rocks, cascades, valleys and rivers. All these elements can be found in the stereo photograph of Pont Aberglaslyn, Wales. Here the mountain occupies the middle distance with only its base visible, while the line it traces with the sky is suitably irregular and its surface is tinted with foliage. Broken ground abounds in almost every shape from the ivy-covered bridge and tree-covered hills to the rapids flowing under the bridge.

The horizontal aspects of the composition are broken by irregular lines which lead the eye into the picture while the nearly horizontal lines of the man-made bridge and the end of the rapids draw attention to the centre of the composition. Vertical lines are spaced in a series of receding motifs from the foliage in the foreground to the bare trunks of the pine trees in the distance. This also enhances the stereo effect. The man on the bridge has been cleverly placed at the very centre of the composition and yet the slight offsetting of the arch of the bridge mutes his presence.

The whole composition adheres to Gilpin’s demand that ‘in every representation, truly picturesque, the shade should greatly overbalance the light’, while also conveying the best aspects of beauty contrasted with the sublime by placing the placid water of the foreground in the lap of the mountain behind it.

5.3 Willoughby Falls, New South Wales

In Australia the clarity of the light, its ancient geology and radically different vegetation and scenery were no deterrent for lovers of the picturesque who had emigrated from England. Australian stereo photographers, like those in Britain, concentrated on outdoor photography and some were remarkably successful in endeavours to create photographs in the picturesque style.

Hunt’s photograph of Willoughby Falls is a good example of Australian photographers using picturesque conventions. The cliff is seen through foliage which obscures but adds interest to its surface, as does the cascade of water. William Gilpin believed that it was in the foreground that errors become apparent and these are perhaps more easily disguised by distance. He felt the foreground had to overcome a contradiction in which force and richness were also to contain breadth and repose. To address this problem Hunt weighted the foreground with fractured stone. These richly detailed rocks add force to the composition but their solidity and size also provide a sense of repose. Picturesque interest in the foreground of compositions was helpful for stereo photographers. They found it not only helped to lead the eye into the composition but also enhanced its three-dimensional effect. In Hunt’s stereo photograph the leading lines zigzag towards the cliff and the lightness of the waterfall.