British watercolours 1750-1900: the landscape genre

Thomas Rowlandson, 'The Country House'. Museum no. P.117-1931

The rise of watercolour painting in Britain was closely tied to a growing acceptance in 18th century Britain of 'landscape' as an appropriate subject for painting. In the 1620s one writer, Edward Norgate, noted that landscape was an art so new to England that he could not 'find it a name'.

A hundred years later a taste for landscape was encouraged by two established traditions, the Dutch and the Italianate. Dutch 17th century landscape painting recorded and celebrated the contemporary Dutch landscape. Italianate landscape painting was characterised by two 17th century French painters who worked in Italy, Claude Lorraine and Nicholas Poussin, whose paintings imagined a distant classical past. British aristocrats admired such classically inspired landscapes because of their associations with the Roman texts which formed part of their education.

The culmination of a young gentleman's education in the 18th century was the 'Grand Tour' of Europe, particularly of Italy, which often encouraged a taste for such landscape art. Claude's paintings particularly haunted the British imagination, their sun drenched views of Italy echoing the tourists' nostalgic memories of their youthful travels.

But paintings of the British landscape were another matter. In time the British would learn to look at their native landscape through the eyes of the poet and of the artist. But at first they saw it primarily through the eyes of the land owner, the antiquarian or the surveyor. In Britain the art of the landscape watercolour grew out of the prosaic tradition of topography - the portrait of a place.

Thomas Sandby, 'Windsor Castle from the Great Park, near the End of the Long Walk'. Museum no. 137-1892

Topography: portraits of places

The careers of three early English watercolour artists illustrate the driving forces behind the development of watercolour painting in the 1750s, Paul & Thomas Sandby, and Thomas Malton II.

Paul and Thomas Sandby came to London in 1742 to work at the Tower making military maps. Paul was appointed draughtsman to the Survey of the Highlands in 1746, and his etching of a survey team in mountainous terrain clearly records this period of his life. Thomas Sandby was appointed draughtsman to the Duke of Cumberland and served in various army campaigns. He finally became Deputy Ranger of Windsor Great Park, and acted as architect, landscape gardener and topographical artist, as seen in 'View of Windsor Castle from the Great Park, near the End of the Long Walk'.

Thomas Malton II studied architecture and is best known for his published views of London and Oxford, with their architectural emphasis. Topography, the record of a specific place, was the major source of employment for these early watercolour artists. The demand for topography was fuelled by a number of factors: the traditional military need to record the geography of a land; the interest of owners of country estates in recording their houses and grounds, for example, 'A Country House and Park' by Malton, and the print trade, which fed the growing market for images of places of public interest. Paul Sandby even made his own prints, particularly in aquatint which could mimic the tonal qualities of watercolour. For example, a 'View of Windsor Terrace looking Westward'.

Click on the images below for larger versions.

Paul Sandby, Landscape, probably in the Highlands, with a group of men surveying, 1750. Museum no. E.4345-1902

Thomas Malton II, 'A Country House and Park', 1779. Museum no. P.8-1951

Paul Sandby, 'View of Windsor Terrace Looking Westward', 1776. Museum no. E.55-1891