What is the English Landscape Movement?

The eighteenth-century phenomenon known as the English Landscape Movement is so much more than learning to tell your hermitages from your ha-has. It can actually tell us about art, literature, politics, and empire – in short, it can help us dig deep into the fascinating and complex world of eighteenth-century England.

 

Seventeenth-Century Baroque Gardens

To understand why the English Landscape Movement was so significant, we first need to know what came before it.

In the seventeenth century, French and Dutch-influenced formal Baroque gardens were all the rage with their symmetry, geometric patterns, and carefully shaped topiary.

Our London Luminaries property, Ham House & Garden, contains some excellent examples of seventeenth-century garden features:

Origins of the Eighteenth-Century English Landscape Movement

But by the 1720s, these rigid, ornamental gardens seemed over-blown and the natural, informal designs of the English Landscape Movement flourished in their place.

What happened?

It turns out that there is no simple or singular answer to this question, so we will consider a few of the origin stories that historians have identified.

Classical Influences

Study of the Classics (ancient Greece and Rome) was at the heart of a gentleman’s education. Increasingly in the eighteenth century, they embarked on a ‘Grand Tour’ of Europe to visit the Classical sites of Greece, Italy and France.

There they also encountered landscape paintings by Italian Renaissance artists and by the seventeenth-century French artists, Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665) and Claude Lorrain (1600-1682). These paintings merged depictions of the Roman campagna (countryside) and the mythical ancient Greek land of ‘Arcadia’. As these paintings arrived back in England as souvenirs, an awareness of and fondness for these kinds of landscapes grew. Aristocratic men began to use them as models for their real-life gardens.

In poetry too, British writers were inspired by classical pastoral landscapes, especially as depicted by the Roman poet Virgil. Alexander Pope (1688-1744), in particular, popularised Virgil’s vision of a landscape that was lush but imbued with values of simplicity and harmony.

Many of these poets, artists, and thinkers (including Pope) who had been inspired by classical literature and art, moved into the Thames area west of London. Captivated by the beautiful riverside vistas, they began to transplant Arcadia into their own gardens.

Political Changes

So far, the ‘English Landscape Movement’ seems to be more rooted in classical antiquity than in England. But English people at the time very much saw this gardening style as a national symbol and political statement.

The formal Baroque garden was linked with the absolutist regime of the Catholic French King, Louis XIV. The British, however, had established a limited and Protestant monarchy with the 1688 Glorious Revolution.

While the politics of Britain and gardening are not straightforward, some people at the time saw the adoption of the informal English landscape style as symbolising allegiance to the new order of government, English liberalism, and freedom from monarchic tyranny.

 

Who’s Who: Personalities & Features of the English Landscape Movement

 

Early Years: William Kent & Lord Burlington

The most renowned figures of the early years of the English Landscape Movement are William Kent (1685-1748) and Richard Boyle, the 3rd Earl of Burlington (1694-1753). They met in Rome, returned to England together, and became lifelong friends and artistic partners. Between 1725 and 1738 they designed and built Chiswick House and Gardens (one our Luminaries properties), which is often called the ‘birthplace of the English Landscape Movement’.

Kent and Burlington were part of a wider circle of people who were writing about and creating in this new garden style. They were often based in the Thames area west of London and sometimes collaborated with each other. This group included several of our Luminaries, such as Alexander Pope (Pope’s Grotto), Horace Walpole (Strawberry Hill House) and Henrietta Howard (Marble Hill House).

Here are some of the key features of English landscape gardens from these early years of the movement:

Middle Years: Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown

By the 1750s there was a new gardener on the block: Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown (1716-1783). Nicknamed as such for telling his many wealthy clients that their estates had great ‘capability for improvement’, his name has become synonymous with the English Landscape Movement.

His signature style was more minimalist than classical, with smooth serpentine lakes and vast, rolling lawns that stretched right up to the house, dotted with clumps of trees. Across his career, Brown designed over 170 gardens, including Syon Park, one of our Luminaries properties.

Later Years: Humphry Repton & the Picturesque

Humphry Repton (1752-1818) succeeded Brown in gardening fame and success and began to move English landscape design into a new era at the turn of the nineteenth century.

He drew on the Picturesque Movement, which was gaining popularity in the 1790s for trying to appreciate both wild and cultivated beauty in the landscape. Moving away from the simplicity of Brown’s designs, he re-introduced cascades and streams, as well as buildings, flower gardens, and gravel walkways.

The Meaning Behind the English Landscape Movement

The English Landscape Movement was a paradox. It emphasised the inherent beauty and goodness of the natural landscape but, in reality, these gardens weren’t very ‘natural’ at all. Designers spent a lot of time curating and manipulating nature so that it would look exactly ‘right’.

Why? What did it all mean and what can it tell us about the eighteenth-century world?

Of course, these gardens were clearly symbols of status, setting the upper class apart from everybody else. Vast parklands replaced productive farmland, and sometimes whole villages were removed in service of these landscape ‘improvements’. Some of the wealth that funded the English Landscape Movement came from the economic and human exploitation involved in the British Empire and the transatlantic slave trade.

Some historians also think that the upper class were drawn to this gardening style because they were feeling threatened by the instability of society. Between political upheaval, the growing power of the professional middle classes, and frequent public riots, elites were finding solace in these idealised and controlled landscapes. Their gardens, inspired by mythical paradises, became places of retreat and protection.

See the English Landscape Movement

Our London Luminaries properties offer many opportunities to see examples of eighteenth-century English landscape gardens for yourself. Come and visit:

• Ham House & Garden (17th century)
• Chiswick House & Gardens
• Garrick’s Temple to Shakespeare
• Marble Hill House & Park
• Pope’s Grotto
• Strawberry Hill House & Garden
• Syon Park

Learn More About the English Landscape Movement

Find out more about the English Landscape Movement from these London Luminaries talks:

• Chiswick House, William Kent, and the Birth of the English Landscape Movement
• Alexander Pope: The Poet and the Poetic Landscape
• Marble Hill: Howard and Her Garden of Grottos and Groves
• Horace Walpole’s ‘Enchanted Little Landscape’ at Strawberry Hill
• 17th to 21st Century: Is Ham House Garden Still a Garden of Contemporary Ideas?

Sources

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Bending, Stephen. “Re-Reading the Eighteenth-Century English Landscape Garden”. Huntington Library Quarterly 55, no. 3 (Summer 1992): 379-399, https://doi.org/10.2307/3817684.

Historic England. “A Guide to the English Landscape Movement”. The Historic England Blog, June 16, 2022. https://heritagecalling.com/2022/06/16/what-was-the-english-landscape-movement/.

History Extra. “The English landscape garden”. Uploaded August 16, 2010. https://www.historyextra.com/period/georgian/the-english-landscape-garden/.

Jacques, David. “Garden Design in the Mid-Seventeenth Century”. Architectural History 44 (2001): 365-376, https://doi.org/10.2307/1568766.

The J. Paul Getty Museum. “Brief History of the Landscape Genre”. Accessed August 7, 2023. https://www.getty.edu/education/teachers/classroom_resources/curricula/landscapes/background1.html.

Leafy Learning. “Garden Design: The English Landscape Garden Design Style”. Updated February 12, 2023. https://www.leafylearning.co.uk/r2111-what-is-the-english-landscape-garden-design-style/.

Müllenbrock, Heinz-Joachim. “The English Landscape Garden: Literary Context and Recent Research”. The Yearbook of English Studies 14 (1984): 291-299, https://doi.org/10.2307/3508317.

Richardson, Tim. The Arcadian Friends: Inventing the English Landscape Garden. London: Bantam, 2007.

Ruff, Allan R. Arcadian Visions: Pastoral Influences on Poetry, Painting and the Design of Landscape. Oxford: Windgather Press, 2015.

V&A. “William Kent: designing Georgian Britain”. Accessed August 7, 2023. https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/william-kent-designing-georgian-britain.