The Figure in the Landscape: Poetry, Painting and Gardening During the Eighteenth Century

Abstract

Eighteenth-century England saw the rise of a peculiarly art form -- landscape gardening -- and a corresponding change in attitudes toward the natural world. While the French, who lived under tyranny, had tightly organized, restrictive gardens, the free English enjoyed gardens where they were at liberty to wander. John Dixon Hunt examines eighteenth-century letters, literary and critical works, biographies, paintings, prints, and drawings to trace the gradual movement from formal regularity toward a carefully calculated naturalness.