Uvedale Price (1747-1829) : decoding the picturesque / Charles Watkins and Ben Cowell.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Watkins, C.

Contributor:

Cowell, Ben.

Series:

Garden and landscape history

Garden and landscape history, 1758-518X

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Price, Uvedale, Sir, 1747-1829.

Price, Uvedale.

Landscape architects--Great Britain--Biography.

Landscape architects.

Great Britain.

Genre:

Biographies.

Physical Description:

xii, 259 pages, 4 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color), maps ; 25 cm.

Place of Publication:

Woodbridge, Suffolk ; Rochester, NY : Boydell, 2012.

Summary:

Uvedale Price achieved most fame as the author of the influential Essay on the Picturesque of 1794 in which he argued that the work of the greatest landscape artists, such as Salvator Rosa, Rubens and Claude, should be used as models for the "improvement of real landscape". His attack on the smooth certainties of Capability Brown sparked off a public controversy, drawing in Richard Payne Knight and Humphry Repton, which became a cause célèbre. This is the first biography of Uvedale Price, bringing out his contradictory and elusive character and revealing an astonishing cast of friends and acquaintances, including Gainsborough, Voltaire, William Wordsworth and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. The book shows how he developed his ideas through practical experimentation on his own land and buildings and provides an understanding of the context of Price's practices and theories and the key interconnections between his roles as landowner, art collector, forester, landscaper, connoisseur and scholar.

Contents:

Introduction 1

Chapter 1 'The Greatest Variety of Prospects'

Patriot, judge, politician and 'determined careerist': Robert Price (1655-1733) 4

'Pittoresque beyond imagination': Uvedale Tomkyns Price (1685-1764) 10

'Unbound by glittering chains': Robert Price (1717-1761) 14

Chapter 2 'Macarony of the Age'

Childhood and Grand Tour 24

Inheritance and marriage 30

Gardening 41

Chapter 3 'The Improvement of Real Landscape'

The influence of Nathaniel Kent 47

Woodland management 50

Hedgerow trees and pollards 52

Court connections 58

Chapter 4 'The Great Guns of Taste'

The Picturesque 61

Publishing The Landscape and the Essay 68

Reception of Essay on the Picturesque 74

Price and Repton 78

1796 and 1798 editions: 'What good fun it is to be an author' 81

Chapter 5 Picturesque Designs

Aberystwyth 87

A picturesque experiment: John Nash and Castle House 91

Living the picturesque 99

The marine picturesque 103

Aspects of Coleorton 105

Chapter 6 Property and Landscape

Invasion and defence 112

Tourists at Foxley 116

Social life in town 121

Country life and politics 128

Domestic life at Foxley 133

Charles James Fox 137

Chapter 7 'Mr Price The Picturesque'

Dialogue 142

Picturesque propagation 148

Connoisseurship and public service 152

Landscaping at Foxley, Coleorton and elsewhere 156

Complete essays 1810 162

Chapter 8 'Distant Paths of Leafy Secretness'

Wordsworth 165

Illness and humour 169

Memorials and gardens 173

A susceptibility to poetical impressions 181.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 244-251) and index.

ISBN:

9781843837084

1843837080

OCLC:

779245702