William Gilpin Three Essays On The Picturesque

In the same work he criticises John Dyer's description of the view from Grongar Hill for describing a distant object in too much detail.

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Both texture and composition were important in a "correctly picturesque" scene.

The texture should be "rough", "intricate", "varied" or "broken", without obvious straight lines.

This was illustrated with plates based on Gilpin's sketches, etched by his nephew William Sawrey Gilpin using the newly invented aquatint process.

There followed Observations on the Lake District and the West of England and, after his move to Boldre Remarks on Forest Scenery, and other woodland Views... Gilpin's watercolour technique has been compared to that of Alexander Cozens.

Even Gilpin's descriptions can seem quite vague, concentrating on how scenery conformed to picturesque principles rather than its specific character.

In one much-quoted passage, Gilpin takes things to an extreme, suggesting that "a mallet judiciously used" might render the insufficiently ruinous gable of Tintern Abbey more picturesque.

Some extra help from the artist, perhaps in the form of a carefully placed tree, was usually required.

In contrast to other contemporary travel writers, such as Thomas Pennant, Gilpin included little history, and few facts or anecdotes.

While still at Oxford, Gilpin anonymously published A Dialogue upon the Gardens... Part guidebook to Stowe, part essay on aesthetics, this shows that Gilpin had already begun to develop his ideas on the picturesque.

Unusually for the time, Gilpin showed an appreciation of wild and rugged mountain scenery, perhaps rooted in his Cumbrian upbringing.