Birnam Wood

Artist James Mérigot (Paris, France, 1760 - 1824)

AfterAfter Hugh William Williams (Devon, England, 1773 - 1829)

AssociatedAssociated with Sir John Stoddart (Salisbury, England, 1773 - 1856)

Date1801

Mediumcoloured aquatint on paper

ClassificationsPrints

DimensionsPlate Size: Height: 12.5 cm, Width: 17.9 cm

AcquisitionPurchased in 1961.

CopyrightOut of copyright - CC0

LocationView by Appointment - Aberdeen Treasure Hub

Object numberABDAG011928

Keywords

About MeThese aquatints were engraved by J. Merigot after John Claude Nattes, Hugh W. (Grecian) Williams and Thomas Girtin and published by W. Miller in London in 1801.

Sir John Stoddart, 1773 - 1856, uses them for his two books - "Remarks on local Scenery and Manners in Scotland During the Years 1799 and 1800" and "Picturesque Views in Scotland" London 1801.

Compared to earlier travel guides and diaries, the traveller, was invited in the last decades of the 18th C and early 19th C to visit tracts of country and sublime spectacles of Nature, that had previously been unrecognised. These illustrations submit fully to Picturesque ideals and gave to the growing number of 'arm-chair' travellers a knowledge of Scotland that had hitherto been confined to descriptions of towns.

Such illustrations served to heighten romantic sensibilities with their references to historic places and literary invention such as, the possible haunts of Ossians's hero Fingal. In this selection of prints a well-worn tourist route begins to emerge many of the places to be found on Turner's own itinery.
When Dr. Johnson wrote, in the Highlands in 1773, "An eye accustomed to flowery pastures and waving harvests, is astonished, and repelled by this wide extent of hopeless sterility …..," he was voicing the response of a man belonging to the Age of Reason. The Highlands for him were, "a country upon which perhaps no wheel has ever rolled." His remarks represent earlier attitudes towards Nature before Romanticism cracked the face of Reason. Never-the-less Dr. Johnson in the eighteenth century mode, had made a considerable journey with his friend Boswell to view the then, little known part of Britain.

William Gilpin admonishes Dr. Johnson for such sentiments and proceeds only three years later to reveal to the visitor new ways to see Nature. He introduces the reader to Picturesque subjects, by way of description and instruction. With lessons in form and colour he trains his students to see tracts of landscape as a series of stills or paintings all the time emphasising the Picturesque qualities of composition. "observations relative chiefly to Picturesque Beauty ….." is not just a travel guide but a unique 'grammar' for the interpretation of Nature's powerful and untamed invention.

William Gilpin

Observations relative chiefly to Pictureque Beauty ….. The Highlands of Scotland - 1776

Volumes I and II

Published London 1972

Gilpin is keen to point out all aspect of Picturesque Beauty, which includes mountains, and all rugged and wild scenery. He views landscape with the eye of a painter, seeing it in terms of suitable compositions and gives instructions as to iits transformation onto canvas. His is the very opposite view to Dr. Johnson whom he scolds profusely for being repelled by (the) extent of (the) hopeless serility - of landscape found in Scotland.