Collection: Frick Fine Arts Library, University of Pittsburgh
L201710_001
Landscape
1885 (Date published)
Books
British artist and critic Philip Gilbert Hamerton (1834 – 1894) uses these Scottish Highland scenes to suggest how an artist can improve a landscape by exaggerating its forms. To properly understand the shape of a mountain, Hamerton suggested living near it for “at least a year.” Only by experiencing its terrain from different angles and in varied conditions could an artist transcend mere topography to reveal its “true nature.”
As Hamerton admits in his chapter “Mountains – For and Against,” not everyone shared his zeal for mountainous terrain. For economists, rocky peaks were a “waste of land,” unable to be profitably cultivated or subdivided. “There are regions in which the artificial is so completely predominant that there is no escape from it, but a real mountain always affords that escape,” he wrote.
Alex J. Taylor
Academic Curator and Assistant Professor
History of Art and Architecture
As Hamerton admits in his chapter “Mountains – For and Against,” not everyone shared his zeal for mountainous terrain. For economists, rocky peaks were a “waste of land,” unable to be profitably cultivated or subdivided. “There are regions in which the artificial is so completely predominant that there is no escape from it, but a real mountain always affords that escape,” he wrote.
Alex J. Taylor
Academic Curator and Assistant Professor
History of Art and Architecture
Loan
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