Picturesque atmosphere: in-between the past and present

Abstract

The picturesque refers to an influential genre as well as a critical period during which the aesthetic culture of the Enlightenment was blended to form the Romanticist face of the age. Though it means ‘picture-like’ etymologically, the picturesque goes beyond being an eye-based scene and covers the other senses while aiming to provide a scenario with multi-sensory experiences for ramblers on site. Regarding this disposition, the picturesque atmosphere denotes a bridge in-between the past and present with its role in the theories of aesthetics. In this framework, this article aims to read the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century picturesque by referring to the phenomenological theories of the spatial atmosphere of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Our research demonstrated that the atmosphere of picturesque landscape designs can be conveyed strongly through spatial representations in different art forms. In doing this, the paper proposes the concept of the picturesque atmosphere as a tool to read the spatiality, especially in art branches, mainly including painting. Therefore, a reading model to examine the spatiality in the picturesque paintings was proposed at the end of the paper, by drawing from the theories of both the picturesque and spatial atmosphere.