Module Information

The module is a response to the recent revival in landscape painting in Britain. It aims to discuss contemporary theory and practice of the genre within the historical context of British (and, more particularly, English) tradition from the mid-nineteenth century to the present day. The Nineteenth Century Prospect presents an overview of the contrasts and confluence of Romanticism, Classicism, and Naturalism, objectivity and imagination, science and religion than informed landscape art during this period, and which is also characteristic of revivalist landscape painting in the late-twentieth century. Furthermore, the section describes the evolution of a landscape aesthetic in the twentieth century that was no longer underpinned by religious certainties. The Modernist Outlook describes the development of a more formal (as opposed to a strictly visceral and empirical approach to landscape painting resulting from the interaction of the British tradition with European and American movements such as Post-Impressionism and abstraction in the first half of the twentieth century. This section studies the interaction in relation to Neo-Romanticism in particular. Alternative Views examines the subject matter of landscape painting, contrasting the representation of the rural, industrial, and urban landscapes, and concentrating on the practical problems and issues surrounding the `new aesthetic? of industrial and urban landscape during the period from the 1920s to the 1960s. The Contemporary Scene looks at various manifestations of, and dialogues surrounding, landscape art from the 1970s to the present. It explores the rediscovery of the British tradition in the wake of Modernism and discusses the re-evaluation and re-implementation of both a nineteenth century and a Neo-Romantic landscape aesthetic that has accompanied it. The section also traces the recovery of landscape art of a different order by British conceptualist and Earth-Art practitioners, and studies both the artists? anti-technological and post-industrial stance, and the contribution of their work to the ecological debate. In the final session, members of staff involved in landscape painting discuss their own work in the context of the module and broader traditions