著者

今村 隆男

出版者

イギリス・ロマン派学会

雑誌

イギリス・ロマン派研究 (ISSN:13419676)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.41, pp.1-12, 2017-03-30 (Released:2018-05-09)

参考文献数

14

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In An Essay on the Picturesque: As Compared with the Sublime and the Beautiful; And, on the Use of Studying Pictures, for the Purpose of Improving Real Landscape Uvedale Price claims “the two opposite qualities of roughness, and of sudden variation, joined to that of irregularity” are the most efficient causes of the picturesque landscape. Then he highlights intricacy, wildness, or partial concealment also as key elements, while he says the standard of the picturesque landscape is the art of painting. Here is a strained relationship between those dynamic elements in the scenery and the static and stereotyped expression of picture art. This inconsistency, I contend, is the basis of the picturesque landscape. In An Essay Price describes “hollow lanes and bye roads” under old pollarded trees as a typical picturesque landscape. This is a joint work of nature and humans living in it. This description appears before the definition of the word “picturesque” and is repeated several times in An Essay. This demonstrates its importance for him. In his description of these “hollow lanes” or a ruined building overgrown with weeds Price emphasizes the significance of “accidents and neglect” or “time and accidents” which complete the ideal landscape for him. In these wild scenes he finds energy, or dynamism, of the vegetations, which leads to even a germination of an ecological view on natural power. In the second book of the second edition he tries to convince the reader how the cottage buildings of villagers and the villages themselves have been established for a longer period of “time and accidents.” Price envisions the landscapes of nature and those of human community as being formed through time and space. In the changing period of the 1790s Price was searching a way to describe the surrounding circumstances outside of the conventions.