Description
PLEASE NOTE, our last few copies are slightly worn and have sale stickers on the covers.
In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, poets, artists and travellers flocked to the River Wye in search of the particular style of beauty which became known as the Picturesque; and many indeed were the sketches, paintings, travel diaries and poems produced in an attempt to capture this elusive quality.
Although the Wye Tour declined in popularity after many years in which (having initially been the preserve of aristocrats) it became one of the first destinations of mass tourism, artists have continued to be inspired by the river and the surrounding landscape.
This book reproduces many paintings of the Wye, as well as describing the geology and industrial history of the river and its banks, and gives an account of what was originally meant by the term Picturesque and how the Picturesque art inspired by the Wye fits into European art history, as well as giving a sense of the experiences – from the sublime to the ridiculous – of the early Wye tourists.
Susan Peterken has lived in the Wye Valley since 1993 with her husband George, not far from their two sons and three grandsons. As a keen walker and landscape painter for nearly forty years, she has developed a strong affinity with the valley. It was while undertaking background research as a principal organiser of the Wye Tour exhibition (2006) that she became fascinated by the pictures and descriptions of the Wye landscape left by the early tourists.
Paperback | 144 pages | 245 x 190 mm | 2008
45 colour and 22 black and white illustrations, 1 map
ISBN 978-1-904396-89-5
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